Projects 32 ford tie rod ends?

So I'm making a set of hair pins and wanting to keep in old school and traditional of course. So I thought about using some 32 ford tie rod ends I have on the back of the hair pins where it will attach to the frame mounts. Well that plan kinda went down hill once I tried taking them off. I used heat and lubricants to take them off but was I reckon just too rusty and kept getting tighter right at the end. Anyways I was just seeing if anyone knew where to get new ones. I've search on here, and just looked in a speedway magazine for the first time with no luck, but I'm going for a mid 50's build so ideas or anything would help with mounting these to the frame

 

and I believe the ends I'm talking about are call drag links, **** I don't know but its originally the ends on the bar in front of the axle that goes from spindle to spindle

 

Mac's has everything you need. They sell the housing separately from the parts kit. You'll also need two drag link balls. They have those too. macsautoparts.com Good luck.

 

Thanks, That's exactly what I need. But dang those rebuild kits are costly for what they are. Thanks again though!

 

Those replacement '32-'34 tie rod end housings work fine for they're intended purpose, we use and sell them a lot.

That being said, the original end housings are good quality steel and the new replacement housings are cheap, soft off-shore castings. There's no way in hell I would trust them on the ends of split radius rods or hairpins and all of the loads they are subject to.

Lots of hot rods over the years have used the early tie rod ends on split radius rods and hairpins. But, for the safety of you and everyone on the road near you, you need to use good originals. They're not hard to find because outside of restorers, most hot rodders use the later style tie rods with ball joint ends.

 

Thanks for the heads up on that! Mine are pretty much shot, I love the look but to rebuild them it cost more then the newer style ball joints in the end but maybe I'll luck up and find some better housings. I know I have a rebuilt model a frontend, maybe that have the same housing that takes the 1inch ball

 

Model A housings are nearly identical and can also be used. About the only difference is that the Model A have press-in grease fittings and the '32-'34 have screw-in grease fittings with 1/8" - 27 pipe thread.

What is also different is that Model A had solid bar tie rods while '32-'34 had thick wall tubular tie rods with solid steel plugs in the ends as deep as the threaded portion so that the bar will not crush when the clamp bolts are tightened.

 

I used a larger version that was found on drag links of Ford 1 ton trucks and COE's of the 1940's. I liked the larger appearance of the 1 ton ends better. They are stronger than the tie rod ends of the 30's although I must admit looking back it is overkill. The 1 ton drag links are forged and machined out of one piece. I cut one end off (the ends are not the same so I used 2 drag links) and tried to thread the ends on a lathe. It didn't work because the metal was too soft and had hard spots. I ultimately machined the housings out of solid steel and used the guts out of the 1 ton drag links. They look great but it was allot of work. Original Model A tie rod ends look great too. If I do it again I'm going to try the Model A's.