Well, one of those jobs I expected to take a few hours has turned into a full replacement of the steering links on my bronco. I have no idea how many hours my friend and I have poured into this so far, but probably well over 20 each.

Initially I had planned to replace the TRE's and roll with it as I knew they were shot. We fought getting the drivers side unthreaded from the DOM which required a torch to get it to bust loose. But we got it off and the new TRE threaded in ok amazingly.


The real trouble started when we went to replace the passenger side. I think I must have bent it and it was way galled in there. We would swap back and forth after heating sessions, jumping on a long pipe wrench to get it to spin, resulting in the both of us being really sore for a few days after! But once we got it out, there was no threading the new back in. We thought we'd just get a new threaded insert to weld in.

I picked that up, and we cut the passenger side end off the Tie Rod only to discover it wasn't what we had thought. The tube appeared to be 1.5"ODx1/8" wall, with a very long threaded tube sleeved inside. Even with a long screw driver, couldn't find the end of the threads. So my insert, designed for 1.5"x.25" tube, wasn't going to work anyway.

In the meantime, discovered the drag link was also in poor shape and began to disassemble it and ran into the same problems and only heat would allow us to thread it apart. But after both of us swapping for an hour to thread out one side, I threw in the towel and decided to replace it all. So I tracked down more threaded ends, more DOM (wow $$$) and new ends for the drag link. Once I had that all bought, I had to drill out the passenger side TRE to 1" so I could install a tapered insert. This was easier and cheaper than buying a 7 deg tapered bit. I do have some concerns with weakness at this TRE, but I guess we will see what happens.


After that, solid progress was made:




Reinstall went smooth as we did the easy alignment for toe and got it dialed in. Then we realigned the ram assist tabs and welded those back on. From there, we installed the drag link after centering the steering wheel and pitman arm. I was worried when I noticed we were about 3" short. I began comparing the new TRE's with the old to discover they were made differently (shorter). So I broke rule #1 - always compare new parts to old BEFORE you get started!! Once we threaded everything out to meet up with the pitman arm, I didn't like how many threads were exposed and that my new TRE's didn't come with a single jam nut. That is where I am now.

Plan is to pickup a foot of 1"x.25" DOM, cut the drag link in half, sleeve the new tube inside, weld it, plug weld it, then replace the gap with some spare DOM I have from the initial build. If all goes as planned, it will be hard to notice I messed up to begin with. I also have some jam nuts on order from RuffStuff.

Snowball effect. Started 7 Jan, and spent most of the day jumping up and down on wrenches only to discover it was a complete waste of time. Spent several other evenings and another Saturday to get where I am now. And the price has quadrupled!

I'd like to say lesson learned, but the one time I think I'm in the clear, it'll bite again!

Sure hope that when you reassembled it you coated the threads heavily in antiseize. I coat everything with it on any vehicle I work on. Especially wheels and rotors where they mate together.

Yeah, so much so that it got EVERYWHERE! Ain't playin that game no more!!

Plan is to see if I can wrap it up Friday evening, but taking my time in hopes to hide the evidence that I had made the mistake.