Fixing my steering today...

[Trail X]

My only real worry is that that shims/spacers could move around and eat at the knuckle.

I imagine the sheet metal is by far the softest metal in that system. I wouldn't worry about the knuckle getting eaten away, I'd worry more about your sheet metal getting work hardened and loosening up or squishing out the bottom.

[v7guy]

I've been checking it every couple of days and so far so good.

It looks like there's room for those international pieces so I think I'm ordering those tomorrow. I thought I had some taps to tap some tube to go between the rod end and the tie rod... but I haven't been able to find them. Might have to order some taps too. Figured I'd also weld some tube to the jam nuts to reinforce the rod while i was at it.

Back when I swapped the firebirds suspension to rod ends I used some QA1 XM rod ends but I've been reading some sketchy reviews about them these days. The FK rod ends are looking ok. Are the rod ends sold by these 4x4 offroad sites like Ballistic all they're cracked up to be? Anybody have any experience?

I've been planning on running a male rod end to a tube (.5" ID 1"OD DOM seems overkill enough). Tap it, and as long as I have .75 or more thread engagement on each side of the tube I should be good to go... figuring 1.5 times the diameter of the rod gives proper engagement/strength.

[fishsticks]

Steer clear of Ballistic. Tons of people on Pirate got hosed by them.

[Trail X]

figuring 1.5 times the diameter of the rod gives proper engagement/strength.

1.5 is a minimum. Go with as much thread engagement as you can.

[OregTrailBlazin]

Even FK has a bunch of different grades. You should never buy a cheap heim for steering or suspension IMHO, its not worth it in the long run if you run the truck on the road.


We buy all our Uniball's and heims through FK for the most part. Usually stainless with the lining to keep them quite.

[v7guy]

I thought the more expensive FK was the preferred end these days, just wasn't sure. 8 years ago the more expensive QA1s were the way to go but the tolerances got sloppy when they started manufacturing overseas.

[Hatchet669]

So some good and bad news. Good news. You don't need to drill or taper the steering knuckle. Unless ur 02. Aj's 05 and my 03 didn't need to be drilled. Direct fit. Some early 03's mite have have an issue, but I don't know. For those that need to be drilled, use a 5/8" drill bit to dril it out first then ue the taper bit. What we did for Regs truck. The bad news is, Aj doesn't know which way a dust shield goes on the knuckle.

[v7guy]

not really sure where to go from here. The IH piece obviously isn't going to work. I really don't want to buy new knuckles but I'm kinda running out of choices. I see tie rod end conversions for $400+ but I'd be well ahead of the game to just get the knuckles. I could drill out the knuckle more for a .75" bolt (since that's the diameter of the knuckle hole now) but that's taking a lot of material out, especially at the top end. So far the ole spacers I made are working out, but I don't really like em.

[Trail X]

Are the tapers seating properly into your knuckle? Looks to me like the shoulder is bottoming out, which defeats the purpose of the taper entirely.

Can you grind off the shoulder - then see where it sits?

If it's still too shallow, can you ream a little further into the knuckle to seat the stud deeper?

[v7guy]

It moves just a tad, less than .125. Grinding off the shoulder would move it up a bit but not near enough. Hardtrailz has the reamer currently and still hasn't done the mod. From my understanding only Regulator has used it. I would definitely need to ream more. But that would also eliminate the .75 or .625 bolt route. I don't mind the replacement cycle of a heim, and with large washers they are safe, but I want to make sure my next plan is solid.

If I could find the tapered studs incognito and the others are using I'd be golden, but I've had no luck finding the source. My emails to the places have been met with silence. Maybe they are all machining their own. I curse myself for not having a lathe yet.

Drilling out to .75 or reaming further, I'm game for either one. But I want to do what is safe and I can't really find a consensus at pirate or anywhere else.

[Trail X]

I would be surprised if little companies are machining their own. Studs like this require heat treatment, and heat treatment requires pretty in-depth hardness testing as a quality control measure.

Something like this could possibly work: http://www.speedwaymotors.com/afco-adap ... 41058.html


No shoulder to deal with, and it has the built in inside heim spacer. Too bad they don't have detailed specs available.

[TBNewbie]

Found this and thought it might be interesting to some people.
http://www.4wheeloffroad.com/techarticl ... index.html

[Moots1288]

Went to do the hd tie rod conversion today and the taper on the 06envoys is larger

[v7guy]

So my spacers are still holding up fine, I've seen no reason to replace them. I did wear out a tie rod end though and ended up getting a duralast part to replace the moog. It's the same part number, but the difference is pretty staggering. Pics are at the bottom, duralast is a bit less beefy.
The IH piece seems like it would work fine. I turned the shoulder down in the lathe and it seats fine and there's room for a heim.

[HARDTRAILZ]

If I break standard full size TREs, it's only going to take out the inner, not the outer AND the inner like ours do. Also, I can order these:

Erik...These maybe?

[ErikSS]

mmmMMMmmm purty... Anyone know how to find these? Aprox price? I can get a set of 4 MOOG for around $155....

I like to find serious upgrades to the parts I break... and these look like a serious upgrade from the 2500HD tie rod ends.

[Moots1288]

Was just showing Erik these as well.. I've looked into these if I want to upgrade.

[ErikSS]

I called them. That's $210 for each side of the truck. I also called Johnny at Wheelers. I'm hoping to hear back from him soon. Fishticks can't recall where he found that picture... Come one, someone help me out! lol I like those red ones WAY better than the Polly. Considering the price difference, I'd more likely get Moog of Ebay than pay $420 for those tie rod ends.

[mikekey]

Was just showing Erik these as well.. I've looked into these if I want to upgrade.

Depends where you buy them from: http://www.amazon.com/CST-Performance-S ... B00B8X7PEW

Boom.

[ErikSS]

Ok. So $30 cheaper. Has anyone tried Bummer TREs?