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I'm pulling my steering box so I can rebuild it. It has lots of slop and the on-car adjustments just aren't cutting it. I know I have the stock F41 box in my car, so the 12.7:1 box.
My question is, what are the differences (if any) in the rebuild kits that are for the soft vs sport vs touring suspensions? When I look on Rock Auto or Summit, all of the kits are differentiated. The only real difference I can see from the pictures is that the soft kits tend to come with the bearings and the sport ones do not. Is there something that I am missing? I haven't taken my box apart yet, so I have nothing to compare to. Trying to order preemptively.
Rock Auto list Edelmann Soft Kit Sunsong Sport Kit
To the best of my knowledge, there is no difference in the "kit", apart from which model of box it fits. By "model" I mean, the one with 4 bolts holding the cover on, the one that uses a big snap ring to hold the cover on, etc.
AFAIK all of the gearboxes on these cars use the 4-bolt setup, at least in V8 cars. Either of the kits in your photo should fit them. The only difference between them that I can see is that the one includes the lower bearing for the Pitman shaft.
So, just to confirm, I grabbed the Edelmann kit with the bearings. It all fit properly. Though the pitman bearing that came in the kit was the older style with no shoulder. I ended up reusing the original bearing there. It didn't have any play and the pins all looked clean. I prefer to have the peace of mind knowing it won't get pushed up too far into the gear body. That was the only part that I reused though.
