This is meant as a public service announcement, hopefully someone can avoid the problem I had.

Last summer my steering box started sticking and caused some scary moments. I had the pump, Hydro boost and gear box all changed because pump was failing and debris had contaminated the other components.

1500 miles later had a new steering problem. Turn the wheel to the left and it had 6" of play. Turn to the right and there was no play. Turns out that a 32 spline gear box was installed on my 36 spline Pittman arm.

Advance, Autozone and possibly other parts stores do not show different gear boxes for different model year trucks. Prior to 1999 32 spline was used, after 1999 36 spline was used.

The Ford parts site showed the Two different boxes with model year information and so did "O" Reillys. Armed with this information I called the shop that did the install and had them check for mismatched parts. I also asked them to contact a local Ford dealer and verify via Vin # what gear box and Pittman arm I needed and order through Ford.

The shop offered to go after Autozone and get me a new box under warranty. In the end I spent more $$ by getting the OEM box but there is quite a difference in quality and the amount of play in the OEM box vs. the Autozone box. I bought my truck used with 14k miles on it. It now steers better then when I bought the truck.

 

That's good information, first I've heard of the difference and there's been a lot of talk on here about steering box's. I've adjusted mine a bit to bring the steering tighter but it'll eventually be replaced with an OEM. Thanks.

 

Good info... Thanks for posting.

 

You probably aready know this....You got to be REAL careful with the sector shaft adjustment...

 

Okay, I'm embarrassed. Not sure what the sector shaft is. I loosened the nut so I could tighten the allen wrench bolt and then tightened the locking nut back down. Truck comes to straight from a turn a lot steadier now and remains straight.

I probably turned the nut about one full turn in total, adjusting/tightening it a few times to get there.

 

I'm guessing the sector shaft is what I adjusted. Duh..

 

here is where I got my steering box from and really like it..Red Head has been discussed a lot,here on FTE

Red-Head Steering Gears

 

I had a Ford rebuilt box fail in less than two years. Replaced with a red head and all is good two years later.

 

Thanks for sharing, and good points. I had a 99 f250 at work, the parts store asked front axle rating, gvw, spline count, 2 or 4 bolts on the top cap, and still got the wrong box.

 

how much do the redheads run? i dont see prices listed in link

 

Red Head was put in mine 7 years ago and no problems since,I probably have close to 200,000 miles on it