Sleeving Tie Rod

Not sure how advanced this really is...but I have been thinking for a while of sleeving my tie rod as a cheap easy way to avoid bending it. I'm heading up to NACFest for all 3 days and I bent my tie rod with 31's last time i was at paragon, so i'd like to avoid that this time. What I would like to do is to go to my local machine shop and have them get me a piece of tube that will slide over the tie rod. I will probably drill some holes thru it and plug weld it to the original tie rod to strengthen it. I have been thinking of making it the exact length of the tie rod and using jam nuts instead of the little clamps to keep the TREs in place. Any reasons this wouldn't work, or reasons not to do it? I also have thought maybe just welding a piece of angle iron to it just to stiffen in a little and leaving the clamps at the ends instead of trying to do the jam nut thing. I did search this and couldnt come up with anything but completely custom setups. I'm sure someone will ask "why not build a complete custom setup"...but given the amount of time i have to do it in, I'd rather just strengthen it and be done for now. I would also do a grand cherokee v-8 tie rod but every time i have been to the yard in the last 6 months hasnt found me a good one yet.

I did the angle iron thing and it helped keep the tie rod straight. So I bent the outer tie rod instead. The only real fix is to replace the stock stuff with something bigger. So, my vote is to beef up as cheap as you can for now, then put real parts on it as soon as you can. On the stock tie rod ends, I don't think jam nuts would be worth the effort, but if you can sleeve it cheep, go for it. If not, try the angle iron trick.

I can tell you that it's a cheap and effective way to strengthen the tierod. I've run some hairy stuff and it's worked really well.

It'll work for awhile, but like Mack said, you move the weak link.
I ended up turning mine into an adjuster for 8.25s.

I sleeved mine with some 1-1/2 tube and welded the sleeve to the tierod just before the clamp. I just recently broke my second tierod right at the weld. They do take a bit of abuse though. Hopefully before I break my last one I will do it right and make a new one out of some thick tube and use tube adapters and lock nuts.

Okie Terry said:

It'll work for awhile, but like Mack said, you move the weak link.
I ended up turning mine into an adjuster for 8.25s.

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haha yeah, sounds like a perfect application for a weak little piece of metal

looks like the angle is my best bet. i have some 1x1 angle sitting around and it should be just the length i need. its only really for the weekend at NACfest so i'm not too worried about it. only runnin 31's so i doubt i'll be blowing out TRE's in a hurry, just worried about bashing the tie rod. i'll do my research and maybe pull together a nice "real" setup by the end of summer. thanks

I ran my first trail with the sleeved tierod and it sheered off right at the weld..it was tempered after heating..so, im thinking, dont weld the ends. Plug welds seem the way to go.

Just bend it on the trail, throw a hilift handle over it, get a new handle for your jack and be done with it......

I can be a cheap bastid so this is an 'upgrade' I have tried.
The problem I had was overall the tie-rod is too short so if you weld
a sleave onto it you end up with some damn weak ends (hadto leave my rig overnight at the Hammers when an end broke off!) so this is what I did.
I cut a piece of tube (I believe it was 1 1/8" 120 wall?) about 2 to 3 inches longer than the stock tie rod (measure so you will only have about 1/2" of exposed thread on each end of the rod) cut the tie rod abour 5" from one end., drill several holes in the sleave and then insert each end of the original rod into the sleave (with me so far?) making sure your overall length is the same, then welding the old rod to the sleave at the ends and filling the holes with weld also.
Realy the goal is to have as little exposed thread on the TREs as possible, you need to notch the new sleave so you can still clamp the TREs on. I supose you could find some jam nuts (one with reverse threads) and eliminate the clamps...but we are being cheap here anyway.
Rick R

Okie Terry said:

Just bend it on the trail, throw a hilift handle over it, get a new handle for your jack and be done with it......

Click to expand...

Okay...there is THAT way!

If you are going through the trouble of taking the rod ends off to put a sleeve on it, there is a better way. Just insert a solid steel rod (as near in size as the inside diameter of the tube) inside the rod. Cut it about a half inch shorter than the space between the tie rod ends. This allows for adjustment. What you end up with is an almost solid tie rod.

True,
and not a bad idea, but you're not really adding much steel to it.
A thick sleeve has much much more metal and would be twenty times stronger.
You'd have to use a titanium rod and I'm still not sure that'd be stronger than a mild steel sleeve tube.