i wound up calling ford's "main" customer service department and they arranged to have the car looked at at galpin.... took it in the this morning and they just called me and said that the PTU is bad... the gear backlash is off.... so glad to have it resolved.... i appreciate your time and offer of help... thanks again... josh

 

i called ford customer service and they arranged for me to take the car to galpin ford.... galpin found the problem within hours.... it was the PTU... it had a lot of backlash in the gears... replaced it and i am back on the road.... a happy camper.....
thanks for all you time and help... i sure appreciate it....

 

Sorry for being Johnny come lately on this. That kind of noise is a taking up of driveline slack. The programming of the Transaxle puts some small amount of forward (or revese) power to the wheels. If you are stopped and take your foot off the brake you'll start moving slowly.

When you put it into reverse, and I would have thought forward also, you'll cause driveline slack to take up. If the gears of the driveline, eg PTU & Differential are loose they'll make a noise.

The PTU is little more than a right angle drive, but I believe it is susceptible to wear & tear than other components. When I rebuilt by u-joints a year ago I noted this long aluminum "adaptor" immediately behind the PTU and wondered just why they had it at all. I believe it is a flexible coupling to ensure that the PTU isn't stressed with side loads.

Anyway, that kind of clunk indicates something is amiss among the gears somewhere. ...And I believe the place to start would be the PTU. Glad that Ford came to the same conclusion!

 

hi Im new to the site but I have auto experience and a 05 awd escape hybyrd that had a clunk that sounds like yours. You said the dealer removed the entire rear and still the clunk was present, I too had my vehicle in the dealer for weeks on end, the mechanic said the computor shows nothing wrong so nothing was wrong. I did a little investigation on my own checking the rear system, then I told the service mgr to pull the wheels to check the brakes, sensers and pickups, same story. I even told him I would pay for the time nope. After months I finally got the mechanic opps tech. to take a ride and the noise was there and the brake lite on the dash flashed, how could this be I heard him say. Anyway it seems the disk for the anti locks pickup was cracked and that made the senser engage and disengage. this cost 250$ and the next week the front did the same thing- but I digress- have them a deep visual check on the entire system. It worked for me I hope the same for you Good Luck