Chromoly tie rod and spring perch relocation

[1971ford]

What do you guys think. Bent my tie rod on the highboy yesterday on a trail. bent it back with a piece of tubing at my house.
Should i swap it out for a piece of chromoly tube or is that just a waste of money?

Second question.
What are you guys' thoughts on re-locating the spring perches. As everyone knows the original pinion angle is pretty ridiculous although it doesn't matter for slow speeds. I can re-locate them in a day's time with pulling and re-installing the axle, thinking about doing it. What else do i need to worry about? Alignment afterwards? shock mount angle?

[averagef250]

One word for you:

CASTER


The original pinion angle is perfect. Calling it rediculous is missing something big.

[1971ford]

I thought it was pretty severe but obviously don't have much 4x4 experience or pinion angle experience.
I'm just concerned about doing 40mph (or less) on the freeway in snowy conditions with the hubs locked. I wouldn't get a vibration?

Either way I guess that settles it, pinion angle is fine. Caster was what I had in mind when I asked about alignment. I should know that, being that I do know a little about caster and how to set it while building radius arms for go-fast 2wd's.

what do you think about a chromoly tie-rod, waste of money or nice to have just in case?

[Racer Z]

Chromoly should be fine. Increase the diameter if you can. The larger diameter tube will be stronger and you can usually reduce the wall thickness to save some weight without loosing strength. But you will need to do some math to find the real answer.

Based on some of the other thing you've been talking about that are caster/camber related, I would suggest it's time to invest in a camber/caster gauge and a set of turntables. You can't guess at these numbers. You need to know where you started at, what you changed and what the results are.

Out on the track, we come into the hot-pits and take tire temperature readings to see how things are. Then we adjust air pressure and/or camber angle. That probably won't work for dirt, but there's still a science to it.

[averagef250]

A highboy pinion points down at the dirt at about 5 degrees. The same 5 degree angle as the engine, transmission, transfercase and rear pinion. The U-joint angles must compliment one another. If the truck is stock height you can drive 75 in 4hi. If it's lifted the front driveline u-joint angle will be increased, you'll have issues doing 75, but slow wheeling stuff is fine.

I've never used chromoly for a tie rod before. Kind of expensive tubing if you plan on bending it on rocks. One inch tie rods direct threaded into 3/8" wall DOM works pretty good for me. Considering high steer and crossover parts always have 1 ton tie rod taper in them it's normally a necessity. If you do it to your truck you will need to ream the tie rod sockets.

You'll need the tie rods, the tubing, a lathe to thread the tubing (or spend a fortune on RH and LH extra fine pitch taps) and the reamer for the tie rod sockets. That's some bucks to sink into a closed knuckle drum 44. If you switch to disc you need a longer tube (drum axles are narrower).

If a stock tie rod setup bolts right on your front axle why not run it? When you step up to crossover steering and custom width axles you need to build the parts to fit your application.

[1971ford]

Thanks racer, I googled the caster turn table a little bit, I think for now I am going to just run the 31's. I'm still going to check out the front end as much as i can without tearing it down but I'll tear it down (if i dont find anything wrong with the exterior) when I swap to 35's after my 31's go bald. Which will be a long time.

Dustin, luckily i have very good connections with offroad guys and shops. Fabricating a new tie rod would be no problem at all at a buddy's 4wd shop. They make tie rods and links all the time for rigs. If It wasn't for the connections I'd agree that it would be too much work for the stock d44.

I'm surprised 75mph in 4hi is do-able, I always assumed until now that a pinion angle half as much as mine would cause severe vibration at highways speeds. Good to know.

[Racer Z]

On a related note, you may want to learn about "bump steer" and "droop steer". Considering the extra travel you have, it could be a lot of steering change. I'll explain in short.

With the car/truck resting in normal position, the toe gets set. When the tire hits a "bump" it travels up and the tie rod angle changes. When the tire rolls over a rut, the tire "droops" down and the tie rod angle changes.

This angle change will push, or pull, the tire over. This changes the toe setting at extreme bump and/or droop.

If both tires are at the same extreme, as in jumping and landing hard, the toe-in/toe-out is compromised until the suspension settles back to normal. For dirt trucks, this may not be critical, for track cars it is critical. There is no adjustment setting for droop/bump steer, but there are ways to adjust it. It usually involves bending certain parts.

And "body roll" will put one tire in droop while the other is in bump. Now the car/truck is trying to go some place you're not telling it to go.

Each vehicle model will have different droop/bump steer. Some better than others. One will have negative toe during bump, while another will have positive toe, and some may have no toe change. Making a tool to find what yours is, will be easy. But you'll have to take your springs off to measure your droop/bump steer.

For "extreme" performance minded vehicles, droop steer and bump steer need to be taken into consideration.

There are plenty of good books about suspension theory and adjustments. Well, that's my short version of droop/bump steer.

[1971ford]

I know about bump steer
I assume you're talking about the race truck? the highboy is stock suspension so when you say extra travel I'd assume race truck.

In the process of throwing the race trucks stock steering in the garbage and setting up a dual swinger setup run by HOWE power steering. With 20" of travel up front bump steer is ridiculous. Should have little to zero bump steer when done.
'71's setup will be similar to this on the brodozer


A buddy that races a trophy truck and two class 1's has a complete HOWE power steering box and pump that's worth about 3 grand, that he said i can have. That should work out just fine
Another buddy has a solo motorports dual swinger setup i am going to copy if needed. Really not a whole lot to it though.

[Racer Z]

I am talking about the race truck. Street drivers are usually just fine as designed. Nice pics and cool score on the pump.

[1971ford]

I am talking about the race truck. Street drivers are usually just fine as designed. Nice pics and cool score on the pump.

Yeah I'd have to have some serious problems if i got bump steer on my straight axle highboy And thanks

[averagef250]

I was thinking you'd have to hit one hell of a bump to move the tie rod from it's fixed plane on a solid axle.

I enjoy building tubular tie rods, if you've got the stuff to do it why haven't you done it yet?