a lot of you guys have done this many times before , but since i was doing it anyway...i thought i'd snap a few pic's for the new guys what i'm retapering is a stock vega pitman arm to accept an old ford tie rod end , but this could apply to most anything. notice the tie rod end comes in from the bottom. you may need to come in from the top depending on your application. you may also want to heat and bend the pitman arm too...do that first if you do vega tie rod end removed... getting the right depth of the tapered hole is just as important as the right taper...which is 1-1/2" per foot. since both the vega piman arm and the ford steering arms are about the same thickness..a little over 5/8" ..i'll use one as a guide. the big end of the hole is .620 in the ford steering arm , so i'll shoot for around that..and sneak up on it , checking for fit as i go. if what you are retapering is thicker or thinner you will have to adjust retapering the pitman arm in the mill with a 1-1/2" per foot reamer..as i said, check for proper fit as you go perfect fit. hope this makes sense
Yep. And on a 3 1/2 year old throw-away thread too. It was probably tucked in between a bunch of "What's it worth?" threads when originally posted.
i got mine from snap on...i've heard of people heating the arm and pressing a s**** tie rod in ...the metal moves but is not lost in the reaming
CLEVER!!!!! anyone here tried it? My local machine shop doesn't have a 7 degree ream-they might have an end mill though-never thought to ask.... -rick
BTW, that looks like the standard tie rod end that Speedway sells. If you want to find them locally, they are off a 1948-64 Ford half ton pickup. They have 11/16" threaded end, with a 7 deg taper...
I used this method years ago on dirt oval cars. I was using 49-51 Ford tie rod ***y. on '55 Chev front end due to larger size. Heated area of hole in steering arm and drag link to cherry red and inserted a s**** tie rod in the hole and frailed Hell outta it with BFH with the hole over an anvil with a hole where the inserted tie rod could go as it protruded thru. Hadda be careful to keep hot and also not to go too far! Dave
i think would pay to use a proper size hole in a press plate as a backer if using a press to avoid distorting the hole.... heating would work best when the thickness of the meat around the tapered hole was iffy?....because you actually don't remove much metal when reaming because of the taper , most tie rod ends have a large surface to choose how deep you would like to sink the end. you could enlarge the hole to the minimum amount needed to get the castellated nut on enough to pin it
What about going to a through straight hole and putting a the ball end fittings on, have seen this done on the hotrod shows, mostly on the mudder trucks and rock crawlers.
Thanks for posting it the first time and thanks to the gent who did the search today and dug it up. I needed this bit of info but hadn't taken any time to hunt it up.
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