all OEM Ford boxes are remanufactured now

look at Blue top also ( guy used to work at redhead) but if your box is damaged you may be best with the Ford reman since their core policy is much easier on the wallet

 

Definitely Blue-Top! I ordered one on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and had it the following Monday! Top notch service and quality. The core charge is $200, which I was a little uneasy with. The core was returned and my Paypal account was refunded the day it was received.

You will not be disappointed!

 

You may also consider upgrading to the box off the new 6.7's. There is a thread about that over on powerstrokearmy. Apparently the box was redesigned and now features a much larger shaft as well as the housing itself being slightly larger if I recall. Everybody who made the switch gave positive feedback. I had a 2015 F250 issued to me at work a few years back, a lease with 28 miles on the clock. It's steering manners were one of the things that stood out to me about the truck. Along with the motor(!!!!) and that tiny *** fuel tank(F*******CK!!!!!)

 

I have the blue top in my truck and love it so far!... although the 6.7 upgrade does sound interesting!

 

a link would be good I can't find it on the Army

 

Yep. I started that ordeal. Steering Gear Issues [Solved] - PowerStrokeArmy

This is a direct swap for all the 08-10s I've seen. However, I have heard that there's a few very early Job1s that had a different splines into the gearbox. If you are one of them, you would need to replace the lower steering shaft with the newer updated version. The newer version has the same splines from '10 through '16. Therefore, i assume that '05 to '07s will also require the lower shaft swap. the lower shaft is $200.00.


I found out about this because I got assigned a new company truck back in 2016. The very first thing I noticed was how beautiful it steered! It was on Rails! I started digging around and saw this massive steering gear underneath. One afternoon, I parked my personal truck next to the company truck and did some measuring and noticed the swap would work. After using two Redhead gear boxes in less than 12 months, I was tired of the BS.

However, this is way more expensive than the rainbow-top band-aid aftermarket solutions offered by red, blue, green, purple, yellow, etc... I purchased a brand new box from Ford, and even with my fleet discount it was $700.00 out the door. But, it is a sure thing! My personal truck drives like it should have from day 1.

No more: (1) hard steering while on the brakes and trying to back up a trailer in the mud: (2) wandering steering; (3) binding steering; (4) or hard turning from a dead stop.

 

A link to that 6.7 box swap would be great if you can come across it. If it's fairly straight forward I would definitely see that as an option. The steering on my '12 was much lighter, even with taller and wider tires.

 

Done. See above.

 

So has anyone here tried this yet?

 

I ended up going with a reman unit. The '11 and up box swap on the 05-07 trucks is a little more involved than the 08-10 trucks. You need the box/bolts, steering shaft, firewall plate and need to enlarge the bolt holes in the frame. Not a ton of work but more than I wanted to do. If I knew I was going to keep this truck forever I'd consider it more, as the '11 trucks steer like butter.