well I went to work on this today. my first piece was some 1/8" I had laying around. I cut out a paper template and then copied it to steel and cut it out. I deburred the edges and bent and shrunk it at the small end. The 1/8" was really too thick. It did work, but it didn't sink down in the hole well. I was just able to get the castle nut on the stud and then I wrenched it down.
The drivers side I ended up using some sheet metal, I think it was 16 ga or so. Did the same thing as the 1/8" and pushed it into the knuckle and then tightened down the tie rod end. This side worked much better. It was fully inside the hole, unlike the 1/8" and it allowed the tie rod end to come up just far enough at about 40 ft lbs to put in a cotter pin.
I'm going to remake the pass side with the same sheet metal to make it fit properly.
I left the end open on the spacer instead of welding it and grinding it smooth to let it stretch to the gap between the knuckle and the tie rod end when I tightened it down. It seems to work pretty alright. I put about 100 miles on it today with no issues.
The tie rod ends do have some light contact marks on the body. The rods were bent not only upwards but also towards the back of the vehicle. I assume due to the suspension cycling.
Everything is buttoned up and I'm going to be keeping a close eye on it over the next few days. I drove up some curbs and dropped the suspension reasonably hard a few times to further check it's integrity. My only real worry is that that shims/spacers could move around and eat at the knuckle. I think I'm going to pick up those international adapters and move to a heim joint. When I was looking at the knuckle I only reamed the hole about half way. So for the guys doing this... realize you need to take out a very very small amount of material.
Here's a couple picks of what you have to make when your a dipshit and //// it all up...
