[lslbear72]

Guys, Thanks for this great website as I read and search it almost daily, but never have had to post. It has become very expensive so the wife is not so greatful-sorry.

I was mildly off-roading yesterday while Gopher hunting, no problems noticed. Well today I went to pull out of my driveway, and when the front wheels dropped off of the small curb the pitman arm w/rod attached fell onto the ground. I was able to put it in drive and pull it back into the driveway at a slight angle now as I started to turn the wheels while leaving. Anyway, this Steering sector shaft is broke completely off and part of it is still in the pitman arm.

I searched through the archives and found some data where Ford had lots of trouble with these early on.
1. How do I know if mine has been upgraded (or TSB'd)? mine looked to be about 1 1/2" in diameter (guess).
2. Can I replace just this shaft? if so, part #?
3. If I need to upgrade this shaft to a new one, will it be easy for me to find another 8" liftkit drop pitman arm to fit it?

By the way, I bought this truck used and it now has 75K miles on it. I hope the rest of the info you need shows up in my sig.
Any help would be greatly appreciated,
LL

 

[GrampyJim]

Seen many of these where part numbers were available (can't remember specific years) but no parts to be had. IIRC, the cost of the sector shaft was real close to the price of a whole rebuilt steering gear.

 

[lslbear72]

thx for the reply Grampy_Jim. So in your experience I should just go with a complete rebuilt unit? If that's the case, should I be looking at aftermarket suppliers that may be better than the OEM piece? This could've been a catastrophic issue had it failed while flying down a country road /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

Another thing I saw in the archives is that Ford didn't perform the recall if the truck came with an OEM steering stabilizer. Well mine came with the stabilizer, so I guess I must have the original junky part /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shrug.gif

Anyone else out their have some ideas for me? I'm a do-it-myselfer, so trying to decide next step. Maybe I should be looking into the Hydraulic Ram Assist units if I'm gonna be spending a lot to replace the steering box /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shrug.gif

One more thing- I have 38" tires and 8" of lift without the crossover steering upgrade yet. possibly the cause?

 

[sdpj]

i hope the lift and tires and lack of x over steering werent the cause b/c i have the exact same setup. ill be watching this one develop.

 

[WAMPAKU]

had mine happen in a drive thru. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif had a tow truck come and we had to use the jack to jack up the front end and turn the tires drive forward, jack it up turn tires back up,etc. 200dollars later at my house. i got another bad gear box from a friend, pulled the shaft an repaced it with mine. the only problem i had was the shaft from mine marred the seal so it leaks a little. i bought a agr replacement for about 300 but that is still in the garage. i recently bought the rock ram system and now i have a spare sitting so if you like pm me for pics or price.

 

[GrampyJim]

I'm unfamiliar with the recall and the few broken shafts I've seen we can attribute to the poor quality of our local oil patch/loging roads. None of the ones I've seen have anything but stock or close to stock tire sizes. If a sector shaft is going to fail, it will fail when loads are high... low speed, stopped, high resistance from ground level inputs. At speed, steering effort is significantly reduced.

Our store sells only Ford remans unless the customer specifies elsewise so I can't comment on aftermarket assemblies.