well i guess im might be in the market for a newer truck next year maybe. just changed my oil last weekend and started giving my truck a good look over and it was not good here is the list:

all ball joint boots are torn
all tie rod boots are torn
body mounts are shot
compressor is making a slight noise now
and of course the steering gear needs to be replaced

so im thinking if i was in the market for a newer truck maybe a 00-05 f250 that has the dana 60 already under it?

 

Ignore the dust boots, you're greasing them often enough to push the bad crap out (every oil change works for me), right?

What does "shot" mean? If there's no slop then they're good to go. Soft doesn't mean shot. They're not that hard to replace anyway. There's a good writeup on here.

Compressor sounds like a perfect excuse to ditch A/C and make the condenser into a trans cooler. Maybe my perspective is skewed since nothing I have has A/C but DC beltway traffic in a black truck wasn't too bad in the summer if you put the windows down. Compressors are fairly cheap. Junkyard ones are cheap but offer less peace of mind. The one you have may very well continue making noise for years before it's operationally a problem.

You can swap a steering gear from a 1st gen superduty (maybe look into vans as well?). It's a significant upgrade over stock. Sector shaft is larger. The piston may be larger too (can someone confirm?). IIRC you have to do some mods to the pitman arm, or find a specific one or something (I don't recall what, maybe someone else can chime in). Be careful looking at junkyard boxes though, Ford had some QC issues with one supplier so Google around, read the TSBs and steer clear of boxes with those numbers on them.

I think auto enthusiast boards have a tendency to encourage repairing stuff ASAP. Meanwhile in the real world engines tick, power steering whines, transmissions slip, ball joints clunk, breaks squeak, seals leak, oil gets burnt and parking brakes don't do anything for years and nobody cares because they can't fix it themselves and don't have the money to pay someone else to. My highschool girlfriend's car would slip the 2-3 shift near wot (it was a early 2000s Subaru so it was very easy to unknowingly develop the bad habit of flooring it everywhere and let the car sort out the rest) A buddy and I fixed it by drilling and tapping the gas pedal and installing one of those adjustable desk feet. She drove that at least through college.

If you want a new truck you'll have to look hard IIRC most stuff got the D50, but considering the problems you listed you should have plenty of time to find one and a pretty solid weekend driver lying around afterward

 

and just a quick question i was just curious about swapping a dana 60 on to the front end of my truck and ran into this product and was wondering what u guys think of it and would it work.
Ford Dana 60 Front Axle Simple Swap Kit (late model, '78 & newer) - RuffStuff Specialties

 

No, that only mounts the axle to the springs. You would still need frame mounts for the springs.

Also for simplicity reasons you would want to use a 86-97 dana 60

 

alright thanks for the info and i was doing some looking around and i seen this really cool write up on how to upgrade the dana 44 and i was wondering if this would work for my axle.
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