I bent my tie rod and draglink on a trip Saturday (hey Loppy, Keith, Gary and everyone else..thanks for letting me hang with you for a few hours)

My truck is a 97 Ram 1500 with the D44 up front and that stupid inverted Y steering setup. Dealer parts are $500 to get all new steering parts (both the tie rod and draglink are bent from the rod, through the adjusting sleeve and into the ends). I can get used parts from a buddy for $80 though, so no worries there.

To the point... I am considering going to a true tie rod and draglink setup using some heims and quality steel tube. Rock Rods would be nice, but not available at least for the money I have. Question is the steering knuckles use tapered ball joints stock. Do I need to drill them out or can I use tapered sleeves or what in order to use standard Grade 8 bolts.

Would a tie rod with a welded bracket to connect to the draglink be okay, or am I better off attaching them separately to the knuckle?

You can drill out the holes to accept the bolts or if you don't want to ruin your knuckles in case it doesn't work out then AFCO racing makes some bolts that have the taper on one end and a stud on the other that are designed for what you want to do.

i would just drill them out. if you decide later you want tie rod ends again then you could get inserts to go in the drilled holes for the tie rod ends.

WHY????

I agree the stock death-wobble prone steering linkage isn't worth replacing. However, I'd stay with a conventional tie rod end on a daily driver. I've never looked at the 1500s, but on the 2500s, there was a brief period where they ran a "normal" steering setup on them, my buddy has it on his '99 2500. When mine wears out, I will replace it with either this setup, or just make some custom tie rod/drag links using the stock TREs.

Oh yeah. THANKS DODGE :flipoff:

Pete