I agree with you Dick, it should be strong enough even with 40" tires. But these big meats do put more stress on the steering system, and that may have contributed to the failure. Just my opinion though...

 

I just had this same thing happen to me. Stock truck, stock tires. I came up to a stop sign to make a right onto the highway. Checked traffic stepped on the throttle spun to make the right and the truck went straight. I never would of believed that bolt could break. Lucky I was able to back up and it rolled off the road. Completly lost all steerage, man I can't tell you how lucky I feel it happened this way and not at 65+ which I would of been doing a minute later. 99 F350 303,000miles.

 

I just broke a second sector shaft on my truck, first time in driveway and today pulling into parking stall. this now scares the crap out of me with maybe 80k on this one.

 

Every picture I have seen where this happened, it is obvious that the shaft was damaged or cracked long before the separation occurred. In each case, rust or corrosion was present in the separation area, indicating that the crack had been there a long time.

 

Thats exactly why I changed mine in my Excursion, 14 years and 300,000 miles of being in the rust belt. It was a very unsettling feeling not being able to see the shaft because all the rust. At least with a new one I know its not damaged.

 

Did you change the pitman arm when you replaced the gear?

 

no Tom pitman looks good. all procomp parts and truck was done right, no 1/2 a$$ parts. she has 37's and does 4 miles a day on a washboard road. either way I sure didn't buy this one at Napa again and the guy on the phone at ford had no 411 or helpful comments. I ordered one from Red Head and will have it Friday, they were great on the phone. just a few bucks more than ford plus shipping of coarse. every one I called I asked ONE SIMPLE question, do you magnaflux the shafts on rebuild? only Red Head replied YES. with as wide spread as this appears to be on the forums I find that one simple step crucial to my family's safety and my piece of mind!

 

You may want to replace it. Sector shaft failures are rare, but so are ballpoint stud failures which also use a taper fit. Whenever a ball joint stud fails you have to replace the knuckle, because it's possible an imperfection in the seating surface caused the failure.

I would recommend replacing it. Sector shaft failures are really rare, and the pitman arm is the common factor.

 

will look into it, thanks for the 411

 

have 01 F250, 7.3 diesel, 4x4, while making a left turn the gear box shaft, just snapped, lost all steering, does anyone knows of any recalls or tsb for this issue.

Thanks

 

Unfortunately if there is I haven't heard of it. It doesn't seem to be a common problem, but it does seem to happen from time to time. I'd suggest filing a complaint on the NHTSA website. It would be interesting to know how many of these have failed over the years.

 

This is scary stuff! A part like the steering gear box should never fail, ever!

This thread gets bumped enough to show there is a real problem with the sector shaft being to small for these big and heavy trucks. It may hev been good enough back when trucks only weighed 5600 pounds but now days when they are pushing CDL weights off the factory floor important stuff like steering components should be beefed up.

I would love to hear about a recall on these with thicker sector shafts and new pitman arms.

 

Ha ha...you're kind of known for exaggeration but this is a bit much. The heaviest Super Duty that rolls out of Louisville is under 9,000 lbs. CDL = >26,000 lbs. I think we're a ways off from that.

 

The point is they are nearly TWICE as heavy as they used to be but still use the same steering gear...

 

You aren't going to find a 4500lb super duty

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