Oh that doesn't sound good...

You know that sinking feeling you get when you suddenly hear a nasty sound coming from the drive train of your vehicle? It's a combination of "Shit. That sounds really expensive." along with "Shit. Any minute now the wheels are going to seize up and I'm going to die."

Well that just happened to me. We have a little snow on the ground. Not a lot by Wisconsin terms, but a little. 6 inches or so, with some larger drifts around our barn. I just returned from Farm and Fleet in Madison, with a couple bags of de-icer for around the barn. Being the lazy guy that I am, I decided to drive on down to the barn to unload the 50 pound bags, rather than muscle them through the snow from our driveway.

"Hell. I've got 4 wheel drive, and an off-road truck. A few inches of snow won't hurt anything." I thought to myself as I started up the ignition.

I proceed to roll down to the barn, pull just beyond so I can back up to the door to unload, and my wheels spin a little. I hit a drift of about 10 inches. Gave it a little more gas, and the truck shimmied around and then went where I told it to go. Cool.

I shut off the truck, unload the de-icer, and get back in to pull back up to the house. As I start to drive, I hear what sounds like a muffler dragging on the pavement. This cannot be. I'm in snow. I continue to drive through the snow, and decide it doesn't sounds like a muffler so much as someone ringing a cowbell under the hood.

That's when that feeling hit me. Shit. That sounds expensive.

I get to my driveway, and switch it back to 2 wheel drive. No luck. It's stuck in 4wd now. I pull forward, put it in reverse, put it in neutral...Nothing seems to get it unstuck. And the cowbell starts ringing everytime I move forward or backward. No noise at all when I'm at a stand still.

This is not good, people. I am not happy about this. If any of you gear heads have some thoughts or words of encouragement, I'd appreciate it.

By the way, it's a 2003 Ford F-150.