Steer Straight

The choices are many when it comes to replacing steering components. Here are some of our favourite – and least favorite – options to ensure your time is well spent on the trail.

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Words by Bryan Irons @Bryanirons

“Break, repair, repeat” is a wheeling mantra we live our lives by. It’s not uncommon that someone in our group always manages to break something when we’re out on a trail. As many of these minor hiccups can easily be fixed on the spot and we can continue on with our day, steering damage is something that can turn a simple jaunt in the woods to a long slog home.

We have been unhappy recipients of broken parts ranging from burnt out steering pumps to columns that have come apart right down to broken sector shafts and smoked tie rod ends. However, our most common item of steering sacrifice is tie rod and drag link bar mangling.

The front axle in ‘Stinky Jeep’ – our 1985 CJ7 – came to us more than a decade ago with a slew of heavy-duty components with the exception of the steering setup. It’s essentially an old school Dana 44 straight axle. The steering knuckles had been machined for a high-steer setup but the tie rod and drag link were standard issue ½-ton units, which adorn millions of GM vehicles – nothing spectacular and plenty of room for improvement. So, for those of you looking to upgrade your steering rods here’s what is available and what we did for more ‘reliable’ time on the trail.

Stock

We tend to shun any mass-produced steering components, but some modern configurations do quite well with moderately-sized tires and moderate abuse – SOME. Older systems were not designed with the forethought of daily driving a 37” tire and have proven over time to be lacking in the strength department.

Anyone with an 1980’s or 1990’s Jeep who wheels their rig with little regard for it, knows the old trick of sleeving a tie rod or drag link with a Highlift Jack handle when – not if – you bend up your factory linkage. For us, if we can ‘man handle’ the steering link and get it to flex with our bare hands to a point where we can see it, we speak softly, and gingerly use the pedal on the right.

Sleeving

Consider this “two steps forward and one step back” from the factory bicycle spokes that came in the front end of many wheeling rigs. Sliding a larger piece of tubing overtop of the stock offerings and welding the ends keeps costs down and allows you to use factory tie rod ends as well as retain the factory geometry.

The drawbacks, however, include having to use the possibly weak tie rod ends or threads, the added girth of the tubing interfering with other components, and then there is the possible liability of having steering components that are welded. This last bit can be a real headache depending on your local laws. It’s not our first ‘go-to’ for an upgrade, but it can be effective. As a side note, we really do not recommend using any sort of “black pipe” or non-structural tubing of any sort in steering systems. As the old saying goes “pipe is for poop.”

DIY Steering Kits with DOM (Drawn Over Mandrel) Tubing and Inserts

Steering upgrade kits with components to make your own tie rod and drag link components are available from many online retailers. The typical kit contains a few lengths of DOM tubing in a 1.5” diameter and 0.250” wall thickness, four tie rod ends and threaded inserts that get welded to the tubing once you have them cut to length.

It all sounds simple enough and the kits are very strong and cost effective. Our beef comes from the fact that the welds can be suspect as we have witnessed an insert come separated from the tube due to a failed weld.

The welded components are also subject to legal issues just like sleeving. In addition, the overly large tube required to let the inserts slide into them can become cumbersome and disrupt other suspension components. But overall, these kits offer plenty of added beef for steering your rig straight, but they have limitations.

Threaded DOM Tubing

Now we’re talking! DOM tubing can be ordered in many different diameters and wall thicknesses. For us, a vehicle running tires below 40” would be ideal with tubing consisting of 1.25” in diameter and a 0.25” wall thickness (depending on the thread size of your tie rod ends) and we go up from there.

We have seen some massive tubing and even a solid cold-rolled steel round bar used, but weight is a consideration and the tie rod ends may be the sacrificial lambs if things go bad. With this setup, the drilling and tapping of the ends should be done by someone who doesn’t get colouring books for Christmas and can also count to six with one hand behind their back. It’s not as easy as it may seem to get everything aligned and set properly. Bending of the tubing can be done if you need to snake around any components, but this can create potential weak points.

Threaded solid 7075 aluminum

At the upper end of the scale in terms of strength is solid 7075 aluminum with threaded ends to accept the tie rod ends. When considering this upgrade from the aforementioned steel DOM tubing, weight is just one of the many improvements.

To start with, 1.5” diameter and 0.25” wall DOM is almost twice the weight of solid 1.5” 7075 stock, which leads to seven to 10 lbs of unsprung weight off a front end. When you also consider that aluminum won’t rust, things are looking pretty good. The one major boost for us is the 7075’s ability to “spring back” into shape after taking a light hit. This is a major reason why you see these control arms made of the same material in many high-end race cars.

Now, the bad news. You probably already guessed that the price is much more than any of the other options listed. Our other hiccup is that if you do manage to bend the aluminum permanently, it’s very difficult to get back into its original shape without adversely affecting its strength. Responsible decisions can be hard.

As with most things off-road, there are compromises that only you can make absolute decisions on. We didn’t get into what types of ends for the aforementioned tie rods and drag links are available, but that’s a whole other can of worms with a completely different smell. Maybe another time.

For us, we’ve built, bent, beat back into shape, and complained about all these different link materials and setups. None are perfect but we keep going back to properly threaded DOM tubing, and have done so enough times to invest in a set of specific drills and taps so we can do the job ourselves with some time on a lathe.

If you are buying a kit, keep in mind that these components are what keep you headed straight (ish) without taking out a truckload of puppies. We highly recommend Northwest Fabrication and TMR Manufacturing for top notch parts. For now, we think the paint is finally dry on our new steering setup and it’s time for an alignment and dirt time.

For more information visit https://ca.tmrcustoms.com/