Author Topic: Rugged Ridge Heavy Duty Tie Rod Kit - OPINIONS PLEASE  (Read 3950 times)

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Offline neale_rs

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Re: Rugged Ridge Heavy Duty Tie Rod Kit - OPINIONS PLEASE
« Reply #30 on: June 26, 2008, 09:18:30 AM »
Great news.  Let us know how it turns out and if you can post pics, even better.
'95 YJ, 33 x 12.5 mud tires, RE 4.5 ED lift, Atlas 4 speed, rear D44, ARBs front and rear, 4.56 gears, 8000# winch

Offline jfrabat

  • Gargantuan Mango Tree Mechanic®
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  • Finally USING the Jeep!
Re: Rugged Ridge Heavy Duty Tie Rod Kit - OPINIONS PLEASE
« Reply #31 on: July 27, 2008, 03:45:10 PM »
Well, the kit went in today.  It was pretty much smooth sailing all the way through.  The alignment ended up pretty good also, considering I have not yet had it proffessionally aligned (will do so tomorrow).  The rods for this kit are significantly stronger than the OEM rods (much thicker walls), and the rod ends fit as well as the OEM ones. 

Overall, it took me about 2 hours to do this by myself in the garage (thanks to mineson for the advise on the pulers; they worked like a charm!).  My torque wrench is not working properly (it does not click at all), so I kind of torqued everything by feel, but since I am not driving the jeep today and I'm taking it tomorrow to get it aligned, I'll ask the shop to torque all the bolts as well tomorrow morning (the shop is about 1 mile from my home, so no worries that the the whole thing will come apart!).

This is a comparisson of before and after, so here is the picture before the new steering kit:



And here is the new tie rod and drag link:



I think the track bar and the drag link are parallel enough to avoid bump-steer, but I will report on that later on.

Felipe
'94 YJ 2.5L with 4" RE lift, Superwinch EPi9.0, FoMoCo e-Fan, SD30 and SD35 w/ARB-5.13, 165A alt., 33" BFG KM2 on 15" AR wheels, Sony sound system, Pavement Ends Hardtop, Hydroboost

Offline neale_rs

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Re: Rugged Ridge Heavy Duty Tie Rod Kit - OPINIONS PLEASE
« Reply #32 on: July 27, 2008, 03:57:41 PM »
Looks good!
'95 YJ, 33 x 12.5 mud tires, RE 4.5 ED lift, Atlas 4 speed, rear D44, ARBs front and rear, 4.56 gears, 8000# winch