I took the steering linkage off the front of my Waggy 44 Front end. In doing so I ruined the bushing on the tie rod end taking it off with a air hammer. Everywhere I call tell me that I dont know what I am talking about and that I need the boots. Instead of the boots they have the little round disc type bushing with metal on the top and bottom. Any of you guys that have ever done this no what I am talking about? Where can I get them is there a part number?
I have called all the parts places and even stopped by and they tell me that isnt the right piece. I hate those weekend parts warriors.:mad3:

look at 4wd hardware for the poly tierod bushings. they are cheap, and the rubber ones will just crack and fall off anyway. the ones they will try to sell you are just like rubber washers, and that is what they come with stock.

If you want them sooner I would ask to look in their book of steering parts, but I'd still go with the poly ones.

I guess I dont understand what you are saying... I dont see the bushings in there that I am looking for. Do you have the part number for the ones that you are talking about. These are the bushings not the Boot correct. Thanks alot for all the help.

Can you post a picture of what you are talking about?
I have never seen bushings on tie rod ends.

I dont have a pic I am at school right now. I guess that I will ask this. Is there any reason why a stock poly boot wouldnt work? I would think that a tie rod end is a tie rod end. I dont think that there could be any type of spacer in there. It will only tighten up so far correct? I cant stand not having this in front of me.

When I was re-building my front wagggy 44, I got my poly replacement boots from 4Wheel Parts Warehouse. Bought them online when I was getting some other crap from them for the re-build. I think they only cost like 3 bucks...

Just type the year of the waggy donor (any year will do and you can navigate right to the part.

Jake

Is that site 4wd.com?

Man, i know exactly what your talking about! I had the same question. Will a reagular TRE boot work in place of the bushing thing? Here in WV we have so much mud & water it looks like the TRE will wear out quickly wit the stock style bushing.

Have you mocked your steering up yet? I put my D44 under the YJ last night to measure my caster and i think the tie rod is gonna hit the springs. I drilled my center pin holes 1" off center on my perches to lengthen my wheelbase with my RE 2.5" lift YJ springs with a SOA. It looks to me with the tie rod mounted in the stock waggy config(over the knuckle) both springs will hit hard at normal ride height. I didnt stick the tie rod on too check but im nervous. I cant afford High steer yet.

Do you think where i moved the axles forward on the arch of the spring it will cause intereference with the tie rod?

Thanks and I hope the boots work out instead of the strange bushings.

Sorry dude, I lied. It was Macromotive.com .

Go there and type "tie rod boots" into the keyword search and you get Daystar's full line...

HTH,
Jake

Originally posted by YJ4RoX
Man, i know exactly what your talking about! I had the same question. Will a reagular TRE boot work in place of the bushing thing? Here in WV we have so much mud & water it looks like the TRE will wear out quickly wit the stock style bushing.

Have you mocked your steering up yet? I put my D44 under the YJ last night to measure my caster and i think the tie rod is gonna hit the springs. I drilled my center pin holes 1" off center on my perches to lengthen my wheelbase with my RE 2.5" lift YJ springs with a SOA. It looks to me with the tie rod mounted in the stock waggy config(over the knuckle) both springs will hit hard at normal ride height. I didnt stick the tie rod on too check but im nervous. I cant afford High steer yet.

Do you think where i moved the axles forward on the arch of the spring it will cause intereference with the tie rod?

Thanks and I hope the boots work out instead of the strange bushings.

First: I am glad that I am not the only one that has this!
Second: I used the 44044 on the front I had it all together and drove it. It did fine for me I dont know if your springs are any different. If you move that frontend foward it will help. You ought to stick them up there I would say that you are fine? But... Every application is different

YJ4RoX: When I did my wag swap, I used stock springs with an extra main leaf. I had problems with my steering in two ways:

First the drag link hit the springs under compression. With a drop pitman armi t would clear on the road but as soon as I started flexing it would make contact. To fix this I used a press to put a slight bend in the rod. That solved that problem.

The other problem was that my drag link would rub the tie rod. The pitman arm had the drag link to far back. I put another slight bend to clear it. I don think you wil be able to do this because you are an inch forward and the TR and DL will really hit.

It sounds like you might have to go to high steer. That is my next thing to do because I dont like wheeling with a prebent DL.

Originally posted by ColoYJ
YJ4RoX: When I did my wag swap, I used stock springs with an extra main leaf. I had problems with my steering in two ways:

First the drag link hit the springs under compression. With a drop pitman armi t would clear on the road but as soon as I started flexing it would make contact. To fix this I used a press to put a slight bend in the rod. That solved that problem.

The other problem was that my drag link would rub the tie rod. The pitman arm had the drag link to far back. I put another slight bend to clear it. I don think you wil be able to do this because you are an inch forward and the TR and DL will really hit.

It sounds like you might have to go to high steer. That is my next thing to do because I dont like wheeling with a prebent DL.
I didnt have any of those problems. I used Rubicon Express 4 inch springs in a spring over and it worked fine. As far as I can see now I wont have any problems with it at this time. There are alot of people that have done this swap..... Post up tell what you did. Good Post:)

OK guys, i will try to get everything in tonight & take some pics. I have a buddy that did the same swap a couple of years ago. He has no sterring issues, not thing rubs through his entire suspension cycle. Here is my question:

how tall are the spring perches you guys are using?

I can see where the height will cause intereference. My buddy used RE SOA perches and ground the drivers on to fit on the pumkin. His are really tall perches so his steering is fine. Personally i made my own perches out of 2.5x2.5x.25" box tubing. I made them so they would be the same height(extra grinding on Drivers) and kept them as low profile as possible. Is this where im running into problems?

quote:

How can bigjeepinyj move his forward with no problems and yours is in the stock location and rubs. Just eyeballing everything, my drag link seemed like it would have plenty of clearance before hitting the tie rod by just moving the axle 1" forward. I guess i will find out this evening.

What caster did you guys set the D44 at. I was told to shoot for 6-7*. The more caster you have the farther the tie rod mounting surface is rotated towards the spring. I am not willing to sacrifice caster.

I cant believe the differences in everything from swap to swap. At least 100 people on this board has performed this swap and no two end in the same result. Steering clearances were the last issues in my mind to be concerned with, because i have seen many in person with stck waggy config that work well(ie no rubbing)> My buddy has rear YJ packs in the front with a 2" AAL. His springs have about the same arch my wore out RE 2.5: springs have. How come I could possibly have issues and he doesnt? HELP

I have done this swap-
First off it was on a YJ using stock YJ springs. I was having the same problems yj4rox was having with tierod AND draglink clearance issues. My spring perches are probably only .75" tall if that, and I am running 6.5* of castor (drives awesome). My steering was seriously fubar'ed when I went to hook it up. Luckily I had a friend who sold me the hi-steer components for pretty cheap. I decided if I wanted it done right then hi-steer would be the only way to go, and I don't regret it one bit.

Oh and I know the washer/ bushing thing your talking about on the TRE's, I just put a rubber boot on it.

Originally posted by YJ4RoX

how tall are the spring perches you guys are using?

How can bigjeepinyj move his forward with no problems and yours is in the stock location and rubs. Just eyeballing everything, my drag link seemed like it would have plenty of clearance before hitting the tie rod by just moving the axle 1" forward. I guess i will find out this evening.

What caster did you guys set the D44 at. I was told to shoot for 6-7*. The more caster you have the farther the tie rod mounting surface is rotated towards the spring. I am not willing to sacrifice caster.

I cant believe the differences in everything from swap to swap. At least 100 people on this board has performed this swap and no two end in the same result. Steering clearances were the last issues in my mind to be concerned with, because i have seen many in person with stck waggy config that work well(ie no rubbing)> My buddy has rear YJ packs in the front with a 2" AAL. His springs have about the same arch my wore out RE 2.5: springs have. How come I could possibly have issues and he doesnt? HELP
My Waggy 44 has the RE spring perches I did exactly what you stated above. It was set up when I bought it. I would say that if you use the flat perches it will definately hit. I am a little better off with it moved forward. Althought I had to lengthen (unscrew) my draglink some. But that isnt that big I still have plenty of threads left in it. Get back to us on what happens.

Also Thanks for the post about the bushings I ordered some urethane ones from the website that you gave me and am going to use them. Thanks.

OK, sorry no pics, forgot the digi cam on the desk yesterday. I mocked everything up yesterday. With my caster at 6.5* my tie rod has about 1/8" of clearance under the springs. From full lock to lock the tie rod barely rubs on the drivers side, on the pass side it rubbed just enough to leave dirt on the tie rod from the spring. My drag link will need a bend added to clear the pass spring at full lock, no big deal.

I cant figure out if its going to hit worse as my springs flatten,( if in fact they can flatten more). I cant decide whether or not to make taller perches or run it this way & see if the MINOR rubbing of the tie rod is noticeable. When i say minor i mean i can sit on one side and turn from lock to lock with my hands.

OK im ready to put my flame suit on. but here is my question. How unsafe would it be to weld a 1/8" plate on top of my perches? A full perimeter weld with a couple of plug welds in the center. I know its lift blockish but a 1/8" plate the size of the perch fully welded. Would there really be that much stress on it. I wont do it this way just thought it may be worth trying , just to see if the perches being taller will help. I guess i will break down & make another pair of front perches. Another night of angle grinder fun!

1/8 inch wont hurt you.... If you are going to weld it that much just weld short section so that you dont warp the existing pads.

I may try it, just to see if it makes enough difference before i cut the new perches. That way i know how much taller i need to cut them. Thanks man. Oh yeah, will the TRE's be closer to the knuckle with the boots instead of the bushings? I know those bushings are about 1/2" thick. If the TRE snugs down farther in the knuckle with the boots that may fix my small problem.

Thanks again

The TRE wont go done any futher becauses they are stopped by the taper on the end. The boot may only let the end twist more if the bushing stops some movement now.

I used the perches that I ground off the axles. I added 7 inch long 1/2" steel plates to them to fight axle wrap(like that helped at all!) which made for a pretty tall perch.

I dont see how everybody else didn't have rubbing issues with the TR and DL. The pitman to DL joint is futher back than the TR with the wheels pointing straight. I used the wag steering linkages with a re-tapered YJ drop pitman arm.

ColoYJ, my drag link will hit my tie rod at full lock to the pass side. Its not really bad though. My buddy has a bender so we are going to put a slight bend in the old one to see if that helps, if not, i may go cross over. The bend will be a small "z" but from front to back instead of top to bottom. The bend will only be a temporary fix until i get the funds to do it right.

So the 7" long plates didnt help? I made my perches 7" long to try to help the wrap issues. Im gonna build an anti wrap bar i guess. Have you encountered any problems with the plates welded on the perches? I welded some on last night(1/8") but ran out of time to put the axle under the YJ to check clearances.

I figured the TRE's would bottom out in the same spot with or without the bushings:(

I still have to get my pitman reamed too, they cant find the right taper ream in the machine shop here at work, so now i gotta pay someone to do it.
I need more:beer:

I have had no problem with my perches. Both the perch and the plate were thick so I was able to use a lot of heat to weld them and I welded all the way around.

You might consider using a wag pitman arm since it has the correct taper and it is longer for a better turning radius. I wish I had gone that way in the beginning.

I made anti wrap spring packs and used the long perches but I still have axle wrap. I am building a wrap bar this weekend.