Roadster tie rod ends ?

[cobranut]

Hey guys I've got the Vin#8000 and am currently working on front suspension. Book is not very clear on show if tie rod ends come up thru the bottom of bracket attached to spindle bracket. And a big concern for me these do not have holes for a pin. It came with a nylon nut . I know the book says to tork them to 25 lbs. but I'm still scared they could come off. Book shows tie rod end with hole for cotter pin. What do I do? Thanks for any info. Perry Stevens

[Bob Cowan]

The stud and the hole are both tapered, and the tapers have to match. The tie rod stud should be inserted from the bottom, with the nut on top.

A nylock nut will hold just as well (and possibly better) than a castle nut and cotter pin. I don't use a cotter pin there.

[cobranut]

If the manual shows tie rod end with hole and cotter pin why are they shipping one with Nylock nuts? I'm just not comfortable with these. I see other pics of other builds and they are using the one with cotter pin. Should I call FFR and see if they have tie rod ends with proper cotter pin and nut attachment?

[Bob Cowan]

Engineering wise, a nylock or deformed nut will probably work better than a castle nut and cotter pin. I've been using deformed nuts for the last 10 years of heavy use without any problems at all. I recently replaced the tie rod ends on my '07 Dodge Ram 2500; nylock nuts were installed at the factory.

But, in the end, you have to do what helps you sleep at night. Go down to NAPA and buy and couple of castle nuts, some cotter pins, and a drill bit.

[avgjoe]

The other part of this is that there may be some assumed knowledge. The taper fit of the tie-rod end and the spindle do a lot of the "holding" of this joint. Basically, the nut is wedging the two pieces together and they become very intimate. You are torqueing the nut to 25ft-lbs in this case but it's not really the nut/bolt that the torque spec is for; it's for the joint between the to matching tapers. If you look up a generic nut/bolt torque chart based on the size of the fasteners, you could torque a STRAIGHT nut and bolt of that size to 100ft-lbs and be under it's maximum torque. If you ever have to take this joint apart in the future you'll probably have to use a hammer to seperate the tie-rod end and the spindle.

After you torque the bolt down, put some type of indexing mark (paint pen, nail polish, ...) between the nut and the spindle to verify that the nut is not coming loose or moving. You should do this on all of your critical chassis fasteners (paint nut and end of bolt in most cases). I also prefer and use the nylon locking nuts for this application; never had one come loose and almost always hve to use some hard love to seperate the two.

Joe