@Rockabillyrat Just out of curiosity on those Ford SD'd how long does the OEM/assembly line tie rod ends last? My experience with Ford has been their front end designs are shit from the factory.
I worked as a warranty tech for a replacement window, door and siding company whose owner was all about Ford pickups and had a fleet for installation vehicles with side tool boxes and racks on the bed, some regular cab and some extended, all 2WD. We covered the eastern ⅔ of Nebraska, the western half of Iowa, NW Missouri, northern Kansas and South Dakota up to Sioux Falls, so a lot of miles were put on these trucks, often over a thousand miles a week doing installation work. Doing warranty repair/service work I could put 500 miles on in a day making 2-3 calls, staying over night out in the boonies and working my way back home. 2000 miles in a week wasn't unusual for me.
There was constantly one of his fleet in the shop for one thing or another, mechanical or electrical, being Fix Or Repair Dailies.
As for my truck, 2WD, we could not keep ball joints under it, had to change them out every 6 months or so, same with tie rod ends. The other trucks a little less frequently on their front suspensions. Just a crappy design that was terribly "weak in the knees" for a front end, we won't even go into the constant problems with their OD automatic transmissions once there was over 50,000 miles on them - even with regular fluid changes.
My truck, at 110,000 on it, had the tranny let go in a customer's driveway, put it in Drive, a horrendous grind and slipping as it tried to move itself away, finally got up to speed as it shifted roughly up through the gears to OD and left the small town. Thankfully, highway for the 120 miles home and the shop was off the Interstate, so minimal having to start from a stop. One of the crews had their transmission go out on the way to an install job in Grand Island. Barely made it to the customer's house. Had a local, reputable tranny shop chain (BG&S) come tow it to their shop after unloading all the windows, doors and tools off the truck and BG&S leaving a loaner beater car so the crew could get to their motel and back and put their luggage somewhere. So the three days of doing the customer's house, their transmission was pulled and rebuilt upgraded, like an external tranny cooler added and better steels/clutches.
Anyway, how well does the factory parts you're replacing hold up and for how long? Is it worth the $$$ to buy them from the Ferd Dealer vs Aftermarket?
Also, on those tie rod ends, Moog are greaseable. Were they being greased by the customer at regular intervals, like oil changes, or was it install and forget until they went out and you replaced them again? They are designed to be serviced (greased) regularly to flush out contaminants from wear.
