Steering - Outer tie rod threading difference

[elspanishgeek]

Hi y'all,

Looking for some clarification (maybe peace of mind?) around this. Tons of conversation in other posts about it but I can't find anything conclusive. For context, I have:

• Power steering rack from FFR
• Breeze offset mounting rack bushings
• MOOG ES2150RL outer tie rod ends

I centered the power steering rack by turning the steering wheel all the way left, all the way right, and making sure that the distance from each end of the power steering rack tie rod end to the chassis is the same when the steering wheel is back in dead center. I can't find the posts right now but this was the method that I encountered the most during my forum research. However, I did find one that talked about removing the boot and measuring the inner tie rod to the chassis. This I did not do. I have measured the rough alignment on the front wheels to have 1/8'' toe in, however, the threading of the outer tie rod ends is not equal. It is almost 1/8'' different, with the passenger side further out.

Passenger side
passenger_side.jpg

Driver side
driver_side.jpg

I see my options:

1. Leaving it as is
2. Turning one of the outer tie rods and changing the toe in alignment
3. Doing another alignment procedure

Thoughts?

[CraigS]

You typed "...end of the power steering rack tie rod end to the chassis is the same when the steering wheel is back in dead center." How did you determine 'dead center'? I do it by counting steering wheel turns from full left to full right and moving it 1/2 of that # back from one side or the other. For me it is not a super refined way of doing it mostly due to the ability to accurately discern the difference between (for example) 1.4 turns from 1.5 turns. Personally I would not worry about it for now. I see you are still on jack stands. Having the suspension hanging is not a good way to do alignment. I would revisit this when you have the car on the ground. At that point you can do a full alignment and see how it comes out. A couple of thoughts for then. -Don't forget to pay attention to the steering wheel. Since it only goes on 2 ways, it is not unusual to need to fine tune it w/ the splines at the rack. -If you do the entire procedure and still come out w/ a different amount of threads you can move the rack using the offset bushings. -You really are not that far off. I see 5/8 one side and a tad under 1/2 (call it 7/16) on the other for a difference of 3/16. That means one needs to get 3/32 longer and the other 3/32 shorter. Not much of a difference.