1946 ford tierod problem/question

so longer story short ~check out the build thread for the longer story~ im dropping the front end out of my 1946 ford tudor and have come up with a snag.

Ive got all the sway bar, panhard bar, shocks, spring, wishbone ball mount etc all unbolted all im needing to do right now to roll the front end out is to shimmy the sway bar shanks out of the little dogbones and disconnect the tierod end from the steering arm on the steering box.

the pin and nut came off with out to much h***le but i can not get the full length of the shank out so it can disconnect. you can see that the bar runs to the p***enger side under the wishbone but because the car has no motor in it the bar is resting against the bottom of the wishbone thus leaving no room to bring the head of the tie rod end up and out.

the front of the car is on jack stands so i used a floor jack to compress the front spring hoping that taking some slack out of it would give me the needed room but with out the weight of the drive train you'll lift the car off the jack stands before you'll get it to compress enough to separate the bar from the wishbone.

i see that there is for lack of a better word a collar around the end of the bar that extends to the tie rod. it has two 'rings' one on either end with a nut/bolt so i took those out figuring there must be some sort of adjustment at that point for alignment and maybe it would let me disconnect the tie rod end from the bar but i wasn't really seeing how it all worked so i decided to call it a weekend and see what the hamb had to say.

I did a quick search and didnt realy turn anything up so thought id post.

I won't have time to mess with the front end until next saturday night so im hoping the power of the HAMB fills me in on some way to free up that end and ill be back making progress in no time

 

Hey Tim. If you think compressing the spring will
Get you the room you need you could try a ratchet strap around the crossmember and axle to get some compression maybe?

 

drop the draglink from the steering box ?




,

 

hmm not a bad idea, i just figured that there's no way that rod is always right up against the wishbone itd wear threw it in no time.

so after seeing that it didnt realy change after jacking the front up via the axle like i described that it must be the motor weight that compresses it enough to gain the space.

makes enough since right? ive got ratchet straps maybe thats what itll have to be. funny thing is im getting the front end out of the way so i can install the new motor mounts and the tie rod wont come out because there isnt any motor weight haha

 

Just unscrew the tie rod sleeve until it comes apart. The sleeve has L/H threads on one end and R/H on the other.

 

Disconnect the pitman arm from the steering box and the draglink will drop.
Bolt the wishbone back into the frame first though.

Actually dismounting the wishbone ball from the frame should probably have been your last thing to do and the first thing would be disconnecting the pitman arm from the box or draglink from pitman arn if it would clear.

 

thats kind of what i was thinking about doing Rich B but it obviously hasnt moved in a long *** time so i figured id try to find a photo or some advice before i went messing with it.

Pasadenahotrod. i had considered that but i was just trying to see if there were something a little quicker to get it apart. i actually had not intended to remove the front end today so i had the wishbone mount already popped out to mess with something else and so i left it out while disconnecting everything else.

~if your curious how i ended up pulling the front out with out it being on the schedule of things do i need to drill a couple holes in the bottom of the frame rail for a bracket and the steering and axle was/is in the way of fitting the drill in there. it had to come out eventually for a new spring and some other stuff but hadn't realy foreseen having to do it to get at these holes today.

 

oh, and as it sits the wishbone 'ball' is still up in the mount its just the bottom clam shell bit is off. dont know if that makes a difference but where the wishbone is in the way i can see how if it were drooping on the back side it would transfer the drop forward and also cause some bind.

 

alright since i dont like un resolved threads i bought a gnarley strength ratchet strap and got about a 1/2 inch of clearance before i bent the handle in half haha.

i tried the collar on the tierod end after it having kroil on it for a week and it spun off pretty easy. so thats what i ended up doing to get it out.

the end