Ford Raptor Steering Knuckle and Tie Rod Installation

[BIRDMAN]

Subscribed. Ordered the Knuckles with double shear and the tie rods. I was also going to get the tie rod boots from SDHQ because one of my factory boots has a rip and figured having a spare boot would be a good thing. Does anyone know what the difference between the SDHQ boot and Ford OEM boot would be? Looks like you have to trim the SDHQ boot too with their own tie rod? I noticed the knuckle does not come painted or powdercoated. Is there a reason @BIRDMAN painted his or was it just for looks? I have the AMSOIL HDMP to coat it.

Ford Raptor Tie Rod Boot

The tie rod boots SDHQ sells are the Ford boots. Their knuckle comes with the factory powder coating except in the places they media blast to prep for welding. The gusset they weld in is raw metal also. So I painted mine mainly for corrosion resistance and I suppose looks as well. You do have to trim the end of the boot to fit the larger diameter tie rod. A word of advice is to install the boot so it is not attached on the tie rod side. If you clamp it to the tie rod, when it stretches out it will catch the inner clevis and rip. I've had 4-5 pairs of boots on my truck until I found the magic formula. The cold weather makes it worse....