I have a 2004 FX4 F250 with a 3.5" spring hanger kit on it. Its a fab-tech kit but they didnt put a dropped Pitman arm on it when they installed the lift. Im not 100% sure about this but I think that the connection between the center link and the Pitman arm is at too stiff of an angle. What led me to look at this is I started hearing popping noises comming from the drivers side front end when turning the wheel at slow speeds, like backing out of the drive way, pulling into a parking spot and stuff like that. My stabilizer links are not hitting the leafs or anything and I see no visable signs of wear anywhere. The other day, I had my daughter turn the steering wheel back and forth problaly from 10 to 2 and I noticed a little play in the connection between the pitman arm and center link. I dont think that there should be any play at all, should their? Also when I go over bumps on the interstate, smooth humps at high speeds, I can feel the truck act funny, like when the suspension goes from having no weight on it to compressing, the truck shifts to the right a little, Im guessing that is a result of the slack in that joint. Think a new center link and a dropped pitman arm would fix this? The truck has about 40,000 miles on it, the lift has about 35,000.

 

Sounds like you have bump steer that is enhanced by a worn out drag link or center link. Replace the center link and get a drop pitman arm. The closer you get the angle of the link to the stock angle the better steering performance you will get. The joints on the drag link probably wore out early due to the sharper angle they were function at. And that is probably the noise you are hearing is a bad bushing/bearing in the link. Its between 10 and 2 because this is proabably the most used area of the steering and the joint wore the most their.

 

I have a 2001 4x4 that I'm putting a 6" lift on. The popping noise could be coming from the track bar. The torque specs for the 2001 are 369 ft/lbs. I called the lift manufacturer to see if I really needed to torque the track bar down that much. They told me that the truck could make popping noises if it's not torqued down properly. Try calling the manufacturers tech line.