1995 F250 RCLB 4x4 ZF5 165,000-ish miles. Stock Dana 50. No, I'm not about to do a 60-swap.... Wanna do all the steering links, knuckle-to-knuckle -- outer tie rods, inner rod on left side, center link to the pitman arm, new adjuster sleeves. Couple of questions:

* Is there really a big advantage to going "Professional grade" with the parts? RockAuto has the usual zillion options, but to get all parts of the same brand (dunno if that's useful/important...), it's either Raybestos "Service grade" or Raybestos "Professional grade". Tallying up shopping carts for all six parts of each grade, it's about $130 for the "Service Grade" and over $350 for the "Professional grade". Are they really that different? Shewt, even the adjuster sleeves are, like, more than twice the price for the "pro grade". I've had one mechanic tell me that the only difference is the warranty period (in this case, 2 years vs. 1).

* Here's my grand plan on the R&I
- Measure joint-to-joint distances before starting - knuckle-to-knuckle, knuckle-to-pitman, etc. Write them down.
- Drop the whole assembly at once - joint separator on the joints at the knuckles and the pitman arm.
- Install new parts one at a time and assemble with the new sleeves. Adjust the sleeves so that all joint-to-joint measurements match the original.
- Grease all joints.
- Drive it to the alignment shop
Advantage - if something goes awry with the new parts, I can re-install the old assembly without touching the adjustment sleeves, and still have a halfway-driveable truck. Sound like a plan?

 

Sounds like a plan to me. I however know nothing about the difference in quality. Anymore I lean to buying the more expensive parts. Even though it may take me more time to save up for something, I've been bitten by cheap parts before. Not saying that those cheaper ones are bad, just saying.

 

I'm curious about this as well.
Can you email rockauto and ask them?
Warranty on mail order stuff is always a challenge from my experience. the shipping is a pain also.

 

((Crickets....crickets.....))

Well I'm still torn. I did come up with another alternative. Summit Racing has everything, made by Moog, tallies up to about $240, so right in between the two options above. Maybe that's my safe bet...

 

Update - and another question. Went with Moog, Summit had the best prices. Argle bargle, UPS goofed, delivered everything except the outers last Friday; the outers sat in UPS's local warehouse 'til Monday. So the last decent weather weekend of the year went pfffft. This weekend is about 20 degrees colder :grrr. Anyway, all went in okay, but one question/quandary. The studs on the outers stick up so much, the hole for the cotter pin doesn't really line up with the spaces between the "parapets" on the castle nut. See the pic.

I'm thinking I could put a washer under the castle nut on each side, just to get the hole to line up better. Good idea or no?

 

Mine was like that. I drilled another hole cross ways of the original hole

 

I'd just washer it like you said. In fact, I've done it before. Mike's way would work too.

 

Washers FTW. My "tape-measure alignment" based on the old parts must not have been too bad. Pulls just a hair to the right. "Legit" alignment tomorrow. Thanks for the help, all.

 

I also have a 7.3 powerstroke. 1995. Have you ever heard of anyone changing over to the newer superduty style linkage?

 

I have not heard of that, and dont see the point since the knuckles are already hooked together in a T fashion rather than a Y like some trucks have.

 

My truck has the y design. But thanks for the input!