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I have lots of old 2nd hand suspension parts laying around my property. I scrounged around for over an hour the other day in my backyard and found three of these guys (not nearly as pretty though):



These are the split adjusters for a 3/4" tie rod end off of a Chevy 1/2 or 3/4 ton truck.

I am thinking about using chevy tie rod ends as my upper balljoints, but need a threaded sleeve to weld to the upper arm to provide adjustability. I am thinking I could externally sleeve most of one of these with some DOM tubing (attached to my upper A arm), and leave the remaining split right hand threaded end as an adjuster which would mate to the tie rod end (which would be my upper balljoint on the front uprights).

So, do you think this would be safe to use in this manner? Since I have them already, it would be awfully convenient (not to mention lo-cost).

I'd really like a solid peice with locknut for the TRE, as that just seems stronger to me, so I may ditch the idea and see if I have some other heavy duty TRE adjusters laying around. These just caught my attention.. didnt know I even had them in my scrapyard.

It doesnt look that strong to me. I would suggest using some threaded tube.

Ultimately you have to sleep at night knowing the risk you are assuming. If you are confident they will hold then go for it, but if a voice in your head tells you it may not hold, you should listen. You may be able to use these parts for a mock up during the design phase and switch them out for definitive parts later so in that regard thay are not worthless.

Thanks for the feedback.. I'm going to source some threaded tube for the arms instead from the place I posted in derf's A-arm thread. If I had some tie rods that were standard threaded tubes, I could use those, but I dont want to risk it.

I am using threaded aluminum tube. I bought it at the local dirt track speed shop. They were a bit long, but I had them cut 1 side down, and run a tap through it so I can put in an opposite side thred, now to change the toe on the front wheels all I do is loosen the 2 lock nuts, and turn the steering arm, then retighten my lock nuts. I also used hiems on either ends, with spacers to keep them the right level.

Not only are they functional, but lightweight aluminum is quite sexy.

For tie rods, yep, those look really nice. I'll be using the same on mine. I already have the Toe adjusters on the rear suspension and they look just like that. My steering is going to be full high misalignment heim jointed with right and left handed threads, so I can use swaged tubes for the adjusters. The pushrods for the suspension will also use swaged tube, but I"ll go with high strength steel tubes from Afco for that. They are all zinc coated steel, so they have that nice yellow zinc finish to them, which I'll leave exposed for effect.

I was thinking of using the chevy tie rod adjuster above as the threaded end to be welded to my upper A arm to position the upper balljoint (chevy tie rod end) in my suspension.

Here are the tubes I'm using:


They are really nice and have a knurled portion to aid in adjusting them. I've thought about buying a couple just to cut the ends off and using the threaded portions in my A-arms, as they are less than $10 each, and you get a right and left hand threaded end with each.

BTW, on your steering, make sure to use a safety washer on top of the heim on your knuckles.. that way if the ball ever does separate from the rod end, it wont come off the knuckle.

I've seen guys do this on Jeeps before and in that application, the threaded insert tends to be the weak link and it will typically fail just after the weld (bend). That's under the stress of rock crawling though. In this application, I think they would be strong enough....

That being said, tpped weld-in inserts for tubing aren't that expensive:

http://www.polyperformance.com/shop/pro ... =98&page=1

Or you could just buy the taps and get DOM with an appropriate ID to tap it dirrectly.

yeh all those tubes are threaded, not weld in inserts, plus for this application, bar the typical wheel impacting a curb it will be more than adequate

Doublecheck through calculations or mocking it up that you don't run out of travel. Suspension can move through a huge angle and high-misalignment joints don't guarantee it'll "just work."

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The joints I got will work fine. These are 65 degree angle heims. I dont think I'll be getting a full 65 degrees of suspension travel.