Hi, I am brand new to this club and to forums in general, so I apologize if this is the wrong place to put this post. I have learned a LOT from this and similar forums. Although, now I seemed to have hit a roadblock and I haven't been able to find a solution. There are several "similar" posts, but nothing that's hit the mark, so I figured I'd put this out there:

I have an 06 F-250 5.4 gas w/138k. It had recently had a lot of play on the wheel (15 degrees maybe) and last week I made the move to replace the gearbox with a redhead box. All seemed to go ok, but now the steering is stiff and it won't come all the way back to center after a turn. It turns smoothly and completely with no binding, but it has to be moved the last 1/3 turn back to center.

I flushed the fluid initially with Valvoline max life fully syn. Then second guessed myself after the problem started happening so I switched it back to regular Mercon. No improvement.

I had it on stands today and it was extremely difficult for me to turn my tires left to right manually (at the wheel). The only other thing I did was adjust the sleeve on the drag link to straighten out the steering wheel.

Should I be able to turn the tires left and right from the wheel easily? Every now and then I hear a wine from the pump which I never had before, but 99% of the time it seems fine and is quiet. it just feels like something is over tight but everything should be to spec. Has anyone ever had to swap out a redhead steering box? Any thoughts?

 

Sounds like they have it adjusted too tight. Those are classic symptoms of improperly adjusting the set screw, and if you touch it Red Head will void your warranty.

Give them a call and see what they say.

 

I agree that the box is probably not adjusted properly.

If you have a 4x4, another possibility I have ran into is seized outer u-joints. I replace almost the entire steering system in my Ranger before I found the problem. But if you were not having the problem before the steering box install, then I would put my money on the box.

 

Hey guys, just wanted to give you an update. I reached out to Red-Head and we went through some troubleshooting. They determined it probably was the box so they shipped me out a replacement. After I swapped out the box the steering feels great! Thank you for the advice which pushed me to call.

Wizkid, I did have a u joint issue prior to all this. I had the steering problem that other people have experienced where the truck would move left to right and the steering wheel was impossible to keep in the middle. I greased the crap out of the joints and locked the hubs for a week to get the grease worked in. Since then there have not been any problems.

Thanks again for the input!