1999 F250 superduty 4x4

bobs77vet

bobs77vet

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Joined
Mar 27, 2008
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Location
arlington va
well we added a new vehicle to the family fleet, my older sons adventure , it had been by brothers truck out in Missoula and they just drove to back to Hagerstown Md, it has 153K 7.3 power stroke diesel, and its in really good shape with a great maintenance history and just afew items for us to repair including the steering gear and center drag link



so far we have been learning the systems and cleaning and polishing




heres the first question does the end of this rebuilt Mavel steering gear look damaged from shipping or is it mushroomed from the manufacturing process? and do i need to worry about it?




we can't wait to put this Pitman arm puller on it and have some fun, i had a bear of time on my C3 srteering gear pitman arm
 
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NICE. The 7.3 is Ford's best diesel by a lot - and everything else is pretty much bulletproof. Just a fyi, the Sterling axle has a couple of easy-to-fix issues that will save replacing the entire axle if the issue happens..... but to be clear - big tires and turning up the power will expose the issue, but stock power levels probably won't (the axle twists in the pumpkin)
 
its stock except for a power tuning hand held programmer with a choice of either a performance or towing tune, we think it has the perforrmance tune on it since it has so much pick up to it even with the 3,000 # camper shell sitting on it, i think its 4" lift but it sure looks like a 6" lift.

only other thing is getting the parking brake to hold the camper on an incline, we need that for boat ramps. i think the cable is really stiff from not being used and are hoping that continual use of it and some incremental adjusting of the parking brake shoes in the rotor hat will fix things. recently it had all new brakes and a parking brake hardware kit put on it.

any other thoughts on that mushroomed shaft?? i think it was mushroomed in the manufacturing process since it so evenly distributed. thanks bob
 
bobs77vet said:
any other thoughts on that mushroomed shaft?? i think it was mushroomed in the manufacturing process since it so evenly distributed. thanks bob
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on FJ40s we cut that very top bit off to allow fitment. To me that looks like it was dropped from substantial height - as long as it still turns smoothly, I'd run it.
 
Is the spline pressed onto the shaft? I would really be surprised if that was a factory process (mushrooming the end).

Nice vehicle!
 
thanks guys. my son who has it in his hand (and its his truck) wants to return it, its a no cost process with Rock auto so lets see what the next one looks like. I bought the parts for the project but its his labor, Mavel never returned my email to their customer service people.
 
bobs77vet said:
thanks guys. my son who has it in his hand (and its his truck) wants to return it, its a no cost process with Rock auto so lets see what the next one looks like. I bought the parts for the project but its his labor, Mavel never returned my email to their customer service people.
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that makes a lot of sense. no way of knowing if that was pre or post rebuild.
 
all right i dont want you to think i am getting weak and lazy in my old age, (disregard all the work is being done by my son)

we finally got the steering gear and other parts in and we put the new steering gear in, center drag link, tie rod end and steering dampner in. we pulled the camper off so i could do some more making things shiney




next was taking lots of stuff out to get to the steering gear . those were some beefy parts and needed a serious puller for that pitman arm








and the MAC puller to make it happen, i got it off ebay and turns out my head stud nuts for the MGA are the same size as the missing one on the yoke.


this lead to our race weekend






and now the last fun part. the last time my son and i did rear parking brake shoes inside of the rear hub of car with calipers and rotors was on the C3s we had. we all know what fun that is and we added a few words to the webster dictionary for sure, so we were not looking forward to this,

just so we are clear on this it was 24* degrees outside and night time we finished at 1:30. thats an 80,000 btu torpedo heater blowing into a canopy wrapped on two sides with a tarp bringing it to about 35*











that dirt blaster product is now my favorite degreaser its freaking awesome and puts brake clean to shame, dont use it any where near paint


 
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and that top spring must be above the inner spring with coil side up, or it hits the hub







it was freaking cold

 
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