alright, I am going to make some heavier tie rod end peices, with chevy one ton tie rod ends, and .250 dom tube for the little link arms to the knuckles, what I need to know is, what is the taper on our stock tie-rod ends, a chevy one ton is 1.5" per foot, (or 7 degree) but what it ours? reaming them out is no big deal, but If I could avoid buying a reamer I would be a happy boy.

Thanks.

 

Not sure what the taper is. Another option, have you looked into heim joints?

 

yep, the original plan called for them, but they wear like crap, and are not easily availible when broken. plus they really are not greasable, and nobody around here (cops, or insurance agents) could tell me whether or not they were street legal. I like the appeal of the chevy ones, as they are cheap, as strong, fully greasable, and I can buy them any day of the week untill 9 pm for 365 days a year, garanteed in stock. heims would also need to have large spacers to allow them to rotate as much as our stock tie-rod ends do, and this takes away TONS of strength. for a off-road only rig when designed right I would use them maybe (for suspension for sure) but other then that, If you can get away with bigger tie-rod ends I think it may be better. Not sure though, I am no expert.

 

I must say that I do not know and I would be suprized if anyone knew. The best bet would be to measure a Ford one. Sorry.

JMC

 

Take one of your stock tie rod ends, go to your friendly neighbourhood machine shop and have it checked in an "optical comparator" or shadow graph. It sounds fancy but is simply a machine that provides a scaled up image of whatever you are measuring. This provides a simple way to check angles. I would do it myself at work but I threw out all of my old tie rods after I replaced them. There are other ways to do it, but they would involve some math calculations. Post back if you need this clarified. Good Luck, GlennMc.

 

Seems like I have done this in my days as crew chief on a dirt car. I believe I scribed off exacty a 1" of taper portion of the taper. Measured both points at scribe marks. Subtracted smaller portion from larger portion, then multiplied by 12 (one foot). This should give you inches of taper per foot.

Example: 1.00" minus .780" = 0.22". 0.22" times 12= 2.64" per foot of taper.
Good luck, gearmanx17

 

cool, I got it all figured now. it is not the gm taper, but I can get a reamer for 60$(1.5" per foot) and I am using .25 wall dom tapped to the 7/8/18 thread (gm) I will hopefully get this set up for summer. Thanks for the help.

 

To get these parts reamed; check with you're local racer supply shop. It seems to me like we have had GM spindles ready for real cheap $$$.