2019 F-250 Lariat 6.7, bank repo that showed up already lifted with no paperwork on the kit

this is the post i hoped the buying board would get, so thank you for writing it the long way. i aligned lifted trucks for 19 years and the one that came in driving wrong was almost always the one somebody bought with the lift already on it, because nobody who built it was standing there to answer for it. a vibration that shows up under power and leaves on a coastdown is a driveline angle problem nine times out of ten, not a tire problem. hold that thought.

post your photos one system at a time or nobody can help you. i want, in this order: a side shot of the front axle so i can see the control arms and how far the axle moved, a straight on shot of the front trackbar and both of its mounts, the top of the front shocks so we can read the brand off the body, and the pinion shot you already asked them for. the cold start video, listen to it yourself at idle for a driveline clunk when it loads into gear.

on the vibration, before you spend a dime: get it on a lift or crawl under it and look at the U-joints at both ends of the front and rear driveshafts. a lifted truck changes the angle those joints run at, and if whoever built it did not correct the rear pinion angle the rear shaft runs at an angle it does not like and buzzes right in your cruising range. that is a shim or an adjustable control arm, not a transmission, so do not let anybody scare you yet.

welcome to the club nobody signs up for on purpose. i have the wobble thread two boards over so i will say the thing i learned the expensive way. on a solid front axle truck, which your F-250 is, the single part that holds the front axle from sliding side to side is the trackbar. if its ends are worn, or the kit used a cheap fixed trackbar at a bad angle, the whole front end gets loose and you get a vibration or worse a wobble after you hit a seam.

in your trackbar photo look at two things. the bushing or joint at each end, if there is any slop or cracked rubber that is a cheap fix, and whether the bar runs close to level or steeply uphill. a 6 inch lift that did not relocate the axle end bracket leaves the bar on a steep angle and the geometry fights you. that was my problem and a proper adjustable trackbar with a good joint fixed it for a couple hundred bucks.

grab the front tire at 12 and 6 and rock it, then at 9 and 3. play at 9 and 3 with the wheel straight points at the trackbar or tie rod ends. play at 12 and 6 is a wheel bearing or ball joint. costs you nothing but a few minutes on your back.

i am the guy who reads shock bodies in parking lots so i will take the kit ID. from the photo you posted the front shocks are gold bodied with a reservoir, and the sticker on the lower mount is a Fox 2.0. that plus the way the radius arms look tells me this is most likely a BDS 4 inch coilover setup with the drop brackets, not a 6 inch, and somebody is calling it 6 because they measured off the tire. that is good news, a 4 inch bracket kit on a Super Duty rides and keeps the factory geometry better than a straight coil spacer job.

but the Fox 2.0 shocks have 52,000 miles on them with no history, and a repo is a truck somebody stopped maintaining before they stopped paying. those are rebuildable, so when they start to feel floaty you send them out and get them serviced, you do not throw them away. for now they are fine if they are not leaking, and your photo shows a little oil film on the left front, so keep an eye on that one.

one honest warning on buying a lift you did not build. you have no idea if the ball joints, the wheel bearings or the steering box got touched when the lift went on, and those are the parts that take the beating from 37s. budget as if they are due, and if any of them are good you came out ahead.

different truck than mine but i want to say the thing nobody has said yet. you paid 41,700 for a 6.7 Lariat and a build you did not have to pay a shop to install. a Fox 2.0 and BDS 4 inch kit with 37s and 20s, installed, is six or seven thousand dollars of parts and labor if you walk into a shop and order it. you bought the truck and the build for less than the lot wanted for a stock one. the catch, and it is a real one, is you also bought somebody's deferred maintenance and a trackbar they ran past dead. that is the trade, and on this one it looks like it went your way.

the gears. your F-250 almost certainly has 3.55 or 3.73 from the factory and now spins 37s. the diesel has the torque to not care as much as my EcoBoost does, but you will feel it loaded and towing in the hills around Twin Falls. not telling you to regear today, telling you to drive it loaded for a month and then decide, because 4.30s in a Super Duty is a real bill and the 6.7 might make you not need it.

good diagnosis and you did the right thing backing out instead of guessing. here is the pinion angle fix done properly on a coil sprung Super Duty rear.

your rear axle is held by control arms, and the pinion angle is set by the length and the mount of the lower arms. two honest ways to fix it. the cheap way is a set of pinion angle shims if your setup uses them, but a lot of coil trucks do not, so the right way on yours is a pair of adjustable lower control arms. you lengthen or shorten them a hair until the pinion yoke points just slightly down from the driveshaft centerline, because under load the axle wraps up a degree or two and you want it to land at zero when it is pulling, not sitting still.

here is the part i will be straight about since you have no paperwork on this build. do not set this in your driveway with a protractor and call it done. do the control arms yourself, then put it on an alignment rack and have them check caster and the rear angle together, because a 4 inch kit on a Super Duty also wants the caster set right or it wanders and wears the inside of those 37s. that shop trip is the price of buying a lift you did not build, and it is a hundred and fifty bucks, not a tragedy. the trackbar, buy one with a real greaseable joint, not the cheapest one in the search results.

i bought mine the same way through the same broker, my thread is a couple down the board, so i will just say the two of us landing on this board in the same month is not an accident. there are a lot of lifted diesels sitting in those lender yards right now. people built them up when money was easy and then the note got away from them, and the build is the first thing that stops getting maintained.

your write up is the one i wish i had read before i bid. i did not check my pinion and i chased a vibration for three weeks before a guy on here set me straight. the thing i would add for the next reader, ask the conaway's people for the under shots before you bid, not after you win. they sent mine same day both times, and a photo straight up the pinion and of both trackbar ends tells you most of what you need before you ever put a number in.

i am usually the guy telling people to just level it and stop, so i will be the skeptic here. you got lucky. the kit happened to be a name brand bracket kit with real shocks and the only problems were a trackbar and a pinion angle, both cheap. the next person who buys a lifted repo blind might get a parts store coil spacer stack, a dropped pitman arm that is bent, and a tie rod sleeve somebody clamped with a hose clamp. you cannot tell the difference from a clean looking photo.

so the lesson is not "lifted repos are a deal." the lesson is the one dale and bds keep repeating. budget for an alignment and a full under inspection the first week no matter how good it looks, and know what you are looking at in the photos or bring somebody who does before you bid. you did both, so it worked.

leveling_only_crowd is right and i am going to pin the short version of it so i stop typing it. buying a lifted truck off a photo is buying two things, a truck and a stranger's fab work, and the fab work has no warranty and no story. this one came out well because the OP asked for the right photos, read them with help, and spent the 600 to make the geometry right instead of driving it wrong and blaming the lift.

and credit where it is due, the conaway's listing did not lie about it. "aftermarket suspension lift, approximate" is an honest way to list a build nobody has the paperwork for, and they shot the under photos when asked. that is all you can want from a broker on a used lifted truck. the rest is on the buyer and a rack.

nicely done. air pressure comment at the end is the one most people skip, 37s on a 3/4 ton want the door jamb number for the load you are actually carrying, not 80 all around because it says max on the sidewall, and it changes how the truck behaves on ice more than any part you can bolt on.

leaving this one up as the example of how to buy a lifted repo. ask for the under photos before you bid, read them or get them read, and put an alignment and an inspection in the budget on day one. do that and a build you did not pay for is a bonus. skip it and the lift is the thing that hurts you. keep the service notes coming when you do those shocks in the spring.