tie-rod issues.

Ok, everyday I go to my shop and think i'm going to drive the dually home, and every day something new pops up. LOL

Today's problem. I get my control arms on (byc shortened 1") and go to set a ghetto shop floor allignment to get it up to the allignment shop, and don't have enough adjustment to compensate for the shorter control arms. I look through the TRW catalog and find nothing that is shorter that would work. So as far as I see it, I have 2 options..
1. send my old ones off to my dads machine shop, have them turned down and cut and tapped furhter down.
2. make some new ones with 4 higm joints, similar to a 4-link bar.

I like option 2 better, anyone else ever do this with a c3500? It will take me 2 weeks to get in some 1" OD 1/4" wall DOM to build them, but then again, it would probally take that long to ship out my original ones and get them back.

keep us posted on the out come.....
Info is always is always good reading

I'm thinkin to have your original ones cut down. Building some with heims joints don't sound the safest. I have seen too many of them break. They don't make them from the factory for some reason too. Do you need them tapped further down? or are they just hitting each other in the sleeves? Cuz if thats the reason I don't see why you can't just cut the ends of them off 1/2" on each side. Mine seem like they have tons of threads left on them but they are stock length.

I would go with just tapping the ones you have further down....Unless you have an old S-dime layin around and try the tierods off of it. I know that they are shorter but I can't remember if the threads are the same.

I'm thinking that the s-10's are 5/8 and the 1T & 3/4T are 11/16 or 3/4 but can't remember

Ok, tried to put in the studs I have to convert the spindle to use a heim joint, and it was a different size. I stared at it for a bit and shaved the inner and outer tie rods 1/2" each, and then shaved off 3/8" off each side of the sleve. Now with all of them bottemed out, the wheels come in just a tad. I still would like to do it the other way, but i'll have to do that later when I have more time. (Got to get working on customer rides, dayum bills keep comming in)
I'm tucking a bit, engine is comming out of the hood a bit. LOL Guess i'll have to go with a project x style hood.. (Any of yall remember that truck?)



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you can just trim the tie rods them self down . I have been thinking about the hiem's set ups the offroad guys use them most drill out spindles but im trying to have tappered sleaves made to fit in spindles so you can just bolt the set up on

we have done the hiem joints on many a truck..... we just drilled out the spindle to a 5/8 hole and used a 5/8 bolt, just make sure you use a taper spacer where the spindle meets the hiem. A good way to do this is if you have to space the tie rods to fix toe problems just have the the spacer made so that it has a "weld grove" on one end where it will meet the hiem but flat where it hits the spindle. I could be wrong on this but I really think you can just cut the end of the tie rod off and the end of the steering arm 1/2" to get the 1" you need...

Just cutting the tie rod down it still would bottem out the sleve. This is why I cut it down also.

I have some heim joint conversion things that I got at 4-wheel parts for a nissan project, but they were to big. (The sleve side) I think snapon and DJM both sell tools to drill it out, i'll see what else I can find.