Fixing bump steer on simple Mustang GT rack instal

Lucas660 wrote: Are you cutting and welding the rack ends? It is highly illegal to do that in Australia and for good reason, in fact no part of the steering system can be welded. I am in the process of building a bolt in kit for right hand drive and am going through options for the rack ends and tie rod ends. Luckily the roadsafe catalog has lengths and thread details.

No cutting and welding rack ends.

The adapter spacers, may or may not need shaving (if threads are deep for the tie rod fitment), or cutting to shorten for welding after sectioning.

The reason I have not bothered with such adapter spacers, is that the Ford rack for 98 to 04 uses some very weak tie rods at the pivots. There is no replacement tie rod that will fit on the rack ends.

I have not looked into differences with Flamming River, Woodward and other rack systems and their tie rods. Mainly because of costs and my original mod was to be a basic Mustang rack install. It grew as i discovered hidden issues as digged further, which made for customizing tie rod setup.

That matter I refrain from that discussion here (anyone can bring up discussion on my modding thread about what i have done), as the topic is about the adapters, and making sure pivot ends between the tie rods are as close as possible (distance wise) to the pivot points between the lower arms.

Mopar_guy wrote: 304-dude wrote: The reason I have not bothered with such adapter spacers, is that the Ford rack for 98 to 04 uses some very weak tie rods at the pivots. There is no replacement tie rod that will fit on the rack ends. In all the years I've been working on cars, I've never heard such a thing. I haven't heard anything in the hot rod world either with thousands of MII kits running around out there in much heavier cars and trucks than what you have. Where in the heck did you come up with that "information"??

You missed my disassembly of the Mustang tie rod joint at the rack. One weakness is the nylon ball cup, and the other is the ball end is small.

On the other end of the spectrum is Corvette and the Explorer tie rods I chose to use. Both are noticabley sturdier and have solid steel cups (no nylon) with larger ball ends.

I'll dig out a photo and add later, from one of my threads showing that the Mustang tie rod is a multi piece ball assembly that can be taken apart, while all others are pressed fit ball and cup.

Below is the comparison of components... i tossed the nylon cup, more like a beveled thick washer, that butted between the threaded flat plug and ball. The rack fitting was not cut or drilled to remove these components.






Edited by 304-dude - Aug/24/2019 at 9:04pm