Good friend of mine with '04 Duramax did a little light fourwheeling last week and bent right tie rod. Any info on better ones yet? He is running H2 wheels with green keys. thanks,


mike

Mike


Take a look at this link. Maybe you can visit them and get the inside scoop for some of us.


http://forums.atsdiesel.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=441

Prices are as follows:

1-Unit Dealer Price: $1,300 plus additional $250.00 core charge

ouch I'll just stick with my beefed up stock tierods

<font size="2">Prices are as follows:

1-Unit Dealer Price: $1,300 plus additional $250.00 core charge </font>
Trippin what exactly are you getting for the money and where are you getting the parts/prices from?

Reason I ask is you can get a set of custom made chromoly tie-rods with heim joints on each end for $300-400. It doesn't get much stronger than that.

Heim joints on steering parts is very dangerous in my opinion. Heim joints will fail and come apart when they wear out. There is little warning that this is going to happen. TRE's tend to get sloppy when they wear out and not just come apart. I will do some checking on tie rods for you guys as I have a shop I use for rock crawling parts that was thinking about making some for the Dmax since the owner has one.

May want to try Rockstomper.com


http://www.rockstomper.com/catalog/steering/rockrods/rockrod.htm

mtomac,


Any pics or info on how you "beefed up" your stock tie rods.


Thanks, JP

May want to try Rockstomper.com


http://www.rockstomper.com/catalog/steering/rockrods/rockrod.htm





Funny you say that. That is who I was on about talking to. I did talk to him last night about this a little and it is a space issue right now. There doesn't seem to be enough space to get anything bigger through there.http://dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Cry.gif

http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/uploads/735_BeefedUpTieRod.JPG

I see the picture here and am guessing that you are showing this to prove there is room. Maybe I am confused, what part of the tie rod are you guys breaking? I didn't think it was the outers?

The picture below highlights the inner tie rod. It is snapping off at the threads or bending in the middle where I have it beefed up. The inner tie rod attaches to the centerlink (GM calls it a relay rod, not shown in picture) on the inside and threads into the outer tie rod (sometimes refered to as the tierod end) on the outside. The outer tierod is still stock.

http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/uploads/893_BeefedUpTieRod1.jpgEdited by: mtomac

I seee, said the blind man as he picked up the hammer and saw.


JP

Thanks for the explaination there. I have been talking to my buddy about this over the phone but, since I don't have my truck at the south pole, it has been hard to visuallize. He was mentioning something about parts availability and that the inner was only sold with the entire unit or something of that nature. I think I may see a solution but, let me talk to him about it and see what we can come up with before I go opening my mouth and inserting my foothttp://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Clown.gif

camp

How does the dppi exhaust sound, fit, ect. I don't like v8 turbo diesel flutter and too much noise when towing

My relay rod is starting to look a little loose. While installing Timbrens I noticed slop in the joint where the inner tie rod connects to the relay rod. Whith the front on a jack I was able to move the tire back and forth a good bit while watching the looseness.

Ok, I just got off the phone with my buddy and we think we have a solution for those of you breaking tie rods. Since I am at the South Pole right now, I won't be the one building the prototype but, we should have one soon. I will keep you guys updated what we come up with and how it works for us.http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Big Smile.gif





Oh yea, and I like the sound of my exhaust. I don't think I get the drone that everyone else talks about. It is pretty loud at WOT but, I like that so, it works well for me. It is not nearly as loud as my rock buggy with a 351W and dual flowmastershttp://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Clown.gifEdited by: camp

Prices are as follows:

1-Unit Dealer Price: $1,300 plus additional $250.00 core charge
Trippin what exactly are you getting for the money and where are you getting the parts/prices from?

Reason I ask is you can get a set of custom made chromoly tie-rods with heim joints on each end for $300-400. It doesn't get much stronger than that.


I followed the previous posted link.


http://forums.atsdiesel.com/showthread.php?s=&amp;threadid=441

mtomac your beefed up design looks good. Cures the small diameter rod and is probably the easiest solution. Only downfall is the slop in the factory joints.

Heim joints on steering parts is very dangerous in my opinion. Heim joints will fail and come apart when they wear out. There is little warning that this is going to happen. TRE's tend to get sloppy when they wear out and not just come apart. I will do some checking on tie rods for you guys as I have a shop I use for rock crawling parts that was thinking about making some for the Dmax since the owner has one.
Could you please explain your reasoning? First off nothing is indestructible but heim joints are much stronger than the factory inner and outer joints. Both have their pros and cons. Heim joints would eliminate any play in the steering linkage with the exception of the pitman or idler arms. They are stronger and will not self destruct as you pointed out. Cons are they do require some maintenance(need to keep them clean, a shot of WD-40 every once in a while works) and are expensive. They would also require some fabrication to make them fit. If you are concerned about their durability why do rockcrawlers and monster trucks use them on most of the suspension and steering components?



I followed the previous posted link.


http://forums.atsdiesel.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=441
Thanks. The price on those is outrageous!!! It would be cheaper to fabricate an entirely new 'relay rod' that would accept heims on the inners than to pay a core charge for a modified factory relay rod. If anyone in interested contact Bulletproof Suspension, sorry I don't have their number off hand, they will build you a set of chromoly tie-rods with inner and outer heims for less that half of what PPE wants. You will have to drill out the outer mount on the steering knuckle and modify the inner mount but you won't be disappointed.Edited by: y2kboti

For what it's worth, as I don't feel like going into full engineering details on all of it right now, hiems will not take all the slop out of the steering. They actually have quite a bit of slop in them, especially if you don't buy the really high dollar ones. Yes, I know, I compete professionally in rock crawling and build my own rigs. I do have multiple hiems in my suspension and have used them in my full hydo steering set up, not to be driven on the road. I will not use them again in steering where I can get away from it. I have broken hiems and it is not pretty. As for how we and monster trucks get away with it, we take everything apart after each event and most of the time replace joints on a regular basis. We actually try not to use any more hiems on our suspension than we have to as well. That is part of the reason items like Johnny Joints exist. We build some of our own rubber joints to get away from hiems but, in some situations, the amount of articulation we have to be able to achieve, requires us to run a hiem. It is a range of motion thing, not a strength thing. Here is a pic that will show that a hiem is all we could use. This is the testing of the range of motion on my current buggy's 4-link rear while we were building it.


http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/uploads/A47_flex.jpg

That post didn't really address anything. I still stand by what I said. Heims are completely safe to use with a steering system.

I ran Heims on two daily driven Camaros, and have friends who use Hiems on their daily driven Jeeps. I agree they need to be kept clean and lubricated, but with proper maintenance, I wouldn't worry about using them in the steering system.


EDIT:


Even though I would rather have Heim joints than the weak stock steering setup, for my Jeep (http://www.ntinnovations.com/Jeep), I chose JJoints, and for the truck, I would rather just see a much thicker but standard designed tie-rod.Edited by: Amric

That post didn't really address anything. I still stand by what I said. Heims are completely safe to use with a steering system.


Since I didn't address anything for you, lets try this. Heim joints are designed to be mounted in Double Shear. It is very difficult to design a steering system that can mount all of its joints in Double Shear. TRE's are designed to be mounted in single shear and is the way a steering system is set up. Also, when a TRE wears out, it becomes sloppy where you can tell in the feedback and gives you a chance to change it before failure. A heim joint, especially one in Single Shear, tends to not give this sloppy warning and goes directly to catastrophic failure. If you continue to wonder why rock crawlers use heims and get away with it, go over to www.pirate4x4.com (http://www.pirate4x4.com) and do a search for "heims vs. TRE's" and you will see that none of them condone using them on a daily driver. The vehicles they are being used on see very limited road use and have to use heims due to a poorly designed steering system or a system that needs more degrees of freedom than a TRE allows.

Well without draggin this out let me say that I am using dual heim joints on my drop down centerlink and know MANY people that are running the setup I described and not a single person has reported a problem.

I'm with Camp on this one. The main reason, as he stated, is that once a heim becomes sloppy, it's quickly goes to failure. Additionally, how do you advocates propose to keep a heim clean? A jonny-joint is lubable, heims are not (for the most part - the ones that are have a significantly lower strength rating). He's also right about single vs double shear.


You *can* run them, but Imost people I know wouldn't ride in your rig, especially if you're using it to TOW (!).


I'm sorry, but using a heim in single shear on a steering system is IGNORANT. It's just plain dangerous!


You need to focus on using (stronger?) TRE's and a stronger link.

Heim joints only require a shot of lube every once in a while. As far as keeping them comletely clean, booties!
http://www.fly-n-hi.com/FST/wallpaper/front_800.jpg
If they were that dangerous why would a trophy truck team run them!?

I should have new beefier tierods from Bullet Proof Steering in a few weeks. I have been working with them for months.

I run them on my upper control arms &amp; trac bar of my Jeep, so what?


Running them on a vehicle which only sees so many miles before complete rebuild is different than running them on a tow rig/daily driver. A heim is probably good for 10-50k miles, depending on conditions (just a guess - don't hold me to that one), but once it starts to get sloppy, it can go quickly (catastrophic failure) at any time - compared to a TRE, which is designed NOT to come apart (still possible, but much more unlikely than a heim), even after becoming sloppy.


My experience with boots is they just provide a sack for the crap to accumulate.


You can run anything, the question comes down to what is best for a particular application? I feel strongly that heims in the steering of a truck that is used to haul/pull stuff, which likely gets a lot of miles, is not the right application.Edited by: Joe E

A trophy truck team can run them because they get replaced after each race, not a daily driven vehicle. They also are not on the interstate with many other people driving there vehicles. When the trophy truck wrecks, it doesn't take out numours other people. I guess some people just can't listen to reason so, go ahead, if Billy Bob runs them, they must be the best. Just don't drive on the roads anywhere when I am on them. I don't feel like being killed by some idiot who doesn't understand proper design and use of materials.http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Ermm.gif