WHS Tie Rod Assy

I've been wanting to do these for a long time and with Carson's C-121 sitting on the bench it seemed like the perfect time.   Most of what peeps are selling is this so called Made in USA tie rod that looks awful, and just barely covers the ball end on the long side.  Everyone from Stens and other name brands to peeps selling them on ebay are selling these same tie rods.  I ordered a few of them years ago to check out and found between the looks, terrible looking crimp, and what I think is sub standard work I would never use them.  On top of that you can buy an original from Toro for a few dollars more that is much more professional looking and yellow zinc coated.  

This project started out by copying a Wheel Horse tie rod but beefing it up a little.  The tie rod end female sides were 7/16-20 instead of 3/8-24 allowing me to use a grade 9 7/16-20 bolt welded to the rod long end.  It's the same bolts I use for the Wheel Horse wheel stud kits we do here.  Some pics of the 1st design are below.  

 

More pics of the 1st design and finishing one up.

I may keep making this one as a lower cost item in the future if there is a demand for it from customers but the 2nd design is really something nice that may never wear out...  

 

I forgot to post the 2nd design oops.  

This one is my fav.  These joints are made from heat treated C1045 steel, have silver zinc coating, the rod end ball is 52100 bearing steel with a hard chrome coating for extreme durability and load carrying capacity of over 7,600 pounds.  They won't hold water and the part that may fail over time is the 4 bolts holding them on if they get loose.  Total cost to replace the 4 bolts would be less than $1.00.  If something ever did fail for some odd reason only the male joint on the very end would have to be replaced and all 4 of them are replaceable.  In all of the peeps I've ever talked to these types of joints never fail.  The prototypes were made from hot rolled steel but production pieces are made from cold rolled so they have a nice smooth look.

The rod is 5/8" cold rolled steel turned down on the lathe to 3/8" on the end.  While on the lathe it is also chamfered on the end for welding.  Then the 3/8" end is inserted into the heim joint and welded.   Finally it is put back on the lathe to smooth everything back up.  The 5/8" rod is the same size as the outer end of the joint so it comes out really nice.  

The inner and outer joints are RH thread and the inner joints are LH thread.  It's the same design used on vehicles so they can be adjusted in thousands of an inch instead of having to make a full turn.  There are plenty of threads outside and inside the end so there is a lot of adjustment room, and the tie rods can stay attached while adjusting.  This means getting a perfect alignment for the wheels as well as getting the steering wheel centered like it should be.  

This is by far the best, longest lasting, strongest, most replaceable parts, and best adjusting tie rod setup available.  It's the type of part that peeps have come to expect from Wheel Horse Stables.