I always figured it was a pretty uncommon color combination as it seems to be one of the least common colors I've seen these trucks. I've seen a few of them the same color in the 9 years I've had this thing but I didn't think it was that uncommon. Keep in mind the 498 and 124 with xl trim and pinstripe numbers are for regular cab F250's. I can imagine those numbers would be about the same for F150 and F350's or very similar. Still, not a lot out there compared to the other colors that we see all the time and I can imagine about half of the trucks still exist and a few have been repainted other colors by now. I was picking parts off this purple f150 years ago in the junk yard and ripped off a piece of the side trim and it was the same color as my truck originally.

 

Installed a new Borgeson steering intermediate shaft today. Old swivel joint up by the steering column started getting really sloppy really fast. Steering is a lot better now. Also adjusted the steering box. I had to cut it to fit, easy installation. It makes the stock steering shaft look and feel like a cheap toy.

 

Been a while since I updated this. I really haven't had to do much to it other than I put a different carburetor on it last December, I converted it to factory delay wipers at around the same time which works fantastic. Where it gets kind of ugly is about 3 weeks ago on my way to work, I had a choice of hitting a huge pothole or sideswiping an oncoming car so I hit the pothole. It bent the inner right tie rod a bit and threw the alignment out of wack. I got to work and back OK but it definitely didn't drive the same. So, planning on doing kingpins anyways I replaced the affected tie rod and adjuster sleeve and did the kingpins at the same time as well as repack the wheel bearings. After inspecting everything I found the crossmember to frame rivet just behind the steering box is slightly loose causing some extra play in the steering that shouldn't be there, the frame and everything else is OK though. That's my next project, replace the rivet with a grade 8 bolt and nut. There's actually a TSB out for the affected rivet. Kingpins lasted 250K miles, and were obviously neglected most of it's life, as when I bought the truck 10 years ago I had to go picking through about 2 inches of packed grease and dirt just to find the grease fittings for the kingpins. The pins were worn and rusty, but the bushings were largely unaffected, and on the drivers side, after a turn of things not going right I pressed the original kingpin bushings back in and refit them to the new pin and the fit was just as good as the side with new bushings. Never would have dreamed that would work, but it did. Upon doing all of this I noticed my power steering pump is starting to leak a bit from the reservoir, so I guess I'll add that to the list.

 

Well done...removing, installing & reaming new bushes & kingpins is a significant job, even when everything goes well!

I'm interested to hear how your steering improves.

 

So far the steering returns to center by itself way better than it ever has before and the steering effort is reduced by a surprising amount. It also seems smoother just driving on a nice road and going over bumps the front end feels smoother and more planted. The thrust bearings for the kingpins especially on the drivers side were collapsed allowing the spindle to move up and down, quite a lot. I think what saved the original bushings on the drivers side was this built up layer of solidified grease, it was a chore to get that off and it revealed some pretty nice bushings. Not sure how a steel pin wears more than bronze bushings but I'll take it.