rancho lift, steering stabilizer and tie rod ends...

[evomind]

hey folks,
as many of u have seen, i have the rancho kit on my truck. im running 35" superswampers. because of the tires im told, the steering wheel kinda wiggles and vibrates. my shop put a steering stabilizer on it they fashioned from an s10 i think. very mild stabilizer. anyway, the guy at the shop said 2 blocks down the road the tie rod end bent, so hes took the stabilizer off and had to replace a tie rod end.
my question is this....is there any other way to stabilize the steering?
would this indicate the tie rod end is the "glass jaw" when u have a rancho kit? i cant see the tie rod end bending after 2 blocks and not bending/breaking offroading. but not sure how it relates. i asked my at the shop and he hesitated and said "i dont know" when i asked if he thought the tie rod end was the glass jaw if i offroaded.
obviously i havent offroaded since i got the kit, and frankly im a bit worried.
thanks

[evomind]

hey folks,
as many of u have seen, i have the rancho kit on my truck. im running 35" superswampers. because of the tires im told, the steering wheel kinda wiggles and vibrates. my shop put a steering stabilizer on it they fashioned from an s10 i think. very mild stabilizer. anyway, the guy at the shop said 2 blocks down the road the tie rod end bent, so hes took the stabilizer off and had to replace a tie rod end.
my question is this....is there any other way to stabilize the steering?
would this indicate the tie rod end is the "glass jaw" when u have a rancho kit? i cant see the tie rod end bending after 2 blocks and not bending/breaking offroading. but not sure how it relates. i asked my at the shop and he hesitated and said "i dont know" when i asked if he thought the tie rod end was the glass jaw if i offroaded.
obviously i havent offroaded since i got the kit, and frankly im a bit worried.
thanks

[timgco]

Evo, I checked witha couple of shops here in CO that build crawlers. They both said with the rack and pinion steering set up it woul dbe very hard to to fab something up. Rancho said they cannot make one for it.

Also, if you plan to off road, check my ost on RANCHO WARNING. See how close your trires/ rims are to touching that steering knuckle.

that vibration I had in mine went away affter I had a nother FE alignment done. See if your bumpstops in the front are touching the A Arm. Once they put mine back down to touch those, the vibration went away, before that the steering wheel danced.

Also, the tie rods are strong. just like on the H2's though, they need improvement. Only a couple people have broken them off road. Search the H2 section on Tie Rods and you will find a ton of topics on this. Just buy a spare inner/ outer tie rod assembly if you plan to off road. they are very easy to change if you do break one. if you don't carry one and you break one, you are stuck with no steering.

i wouldn't worry about the tie rod as much as I would about that sidewall of your tire by that knuckle..