Toe'in the line

[Carl McFly]

I'm taking my tie rod off this weekend and straightening it. Prolly take my engine skid off too to do an oil change and I KNOW I'll have to flatten it before I have any chance of getting it back on. But before I do anything, I have a couple questions for the class

Toe - we had that midnight class on replacing steering components at Rausch Creek (John I still owe you big time and your drinks around the campfire at Rausch are on me) and I'm thinking once my TR is straight, I should set the toe to 1/16" toe in. Or maybe it's 1/8". Opinions?

TRE - when I greased my TRE's I found at least one cracked boot. Saw AZ has universal, no name boots. I'm thinking that's good enough but anyone have experience with these? I figure for $6, it's better than the split one I'll be taking off

Straightening a steel skid plate - I'm not sure it will fit in that press they have at U-Do-It. Anyone have tricks to straighten a big ole skid? It's bowed at least a couple inches

thanks!

[Kurt]

A couple of answers from the crowd...

I've used a couple of the universal types on my TREs'. They held up pretty well. Eventaully 1 started to split a bit since it's "bell" was a bit deep for my application.

Straightening a skid plate is easy to do with a stout length of chain and a floor jack. Remove the skid from the Jeep.
Lay the skid right side up on the floor. Place the jack on top of the skid plate with it's lift point above the "high spot" on the skid plate. (Where you want the jack to push down) Use the chain to loop over the top of the jack and pass it around and under the skid plate and secure the chain back on itself well. Now simply pump the jack. As it lifts it will press down on the high spot while the chain pulls up on the low spots (corners or end depending on how you wrap the chain.
Repeat as needed until the skid is flat again.

Ryan and I invented this method a while back. I've used it twice since. Works awesome!

[Captian Carnage]

Carl 1/16 I set mine at a little more like 1 /8 but thats how it tracks straight At 1/16 it pulls to the passenger side with everything on my steering a little tweaked Im very happy it goes straight with no wobble after i set the toe I dont worry that much about the boots They get replace yearly anyways LOL AZ boots should work great as long as they snap on tight Do you have MOOG Ends They are alot better they lasted me 3 years Till I started to run with big dogs Now they last about 1 1/2years for the knckle end 2 years for the drag link end LOL I buy cheap 1s now I just replace them in the spring LOL

[Carl McFly]

Took some advice from Brian and made a cheap but effective alignment jig. Bought 6' of board, 1" x 12", at Cheapo Depot. Had them cut it in half, leaving me with a pair of 36" boards. Secured the boards to my (33") tires with a pair of 4 foot bungie cords on each tire. Cut a notch on each end of the board, to secure one end of the tape measure. Took a lot of back and forth on the adjustments (would have been a lot quicker with 2 people or 2 measuring tapes) but my toe in is set to exactly 1/8"

AND I put all my cotter pins back in!

[Captian Carnage]

I never thought of using bungie cords LOL

[ChrisD]

Please tell me you took photos and the py will be posted later??

[Carl McFly]

Please tell me you took photos and the py will be posted later??

My goals were low buck but sturdy, with minimal chance of flexing. So I went with a 1" x 12" board, to spread the stress load. To secure the board I had to go across the length of the tire (33") and the width (about 12", x2) which comes out to about 57". I went with 4' bungee cords. The bungees were taught but not so much that they would flex the wood, and the 1.5" overhang of the wood on the tire helped minimize flex



I couldn't center the boards on the tire because of clearance under my heep. I had to have a clear line of sight to run the tape measure and even though the board isn't dead center, if I did the math right, there's no impact on accuracy



I went with a perpendicular cut to hold the tape measure in place but found out that a piece of Gorilla (duct) tape worked even better. The tape measure slid into the vertical cut but the duct tape was added security



After this it was turn, measure, turn, measure, ad infinitum. Tighten the tie rod and whoops, readings changed. Patience paid off, I ended up with a true 1/8" toe in

Took me about 45 minutes to get it right but with 2 people and 2 measuring tapes, it could probably be done in 15 minutes or less

Final measurements: 78 5/8" in back of tire, 78 1/2" in front for a 1/8" toe in. BOO-YAAHHHHH!!!!!!

[Frank]

Farmers do come up with the coolist stuff ! FjR68

[nostaw]

I still say 1/8" is a LOT of toe.

Hopefully you won't scrub off another set of tires.

The board / bungee thing is clever though!

JW

[Carl McFly]

I still say 1/8" is a LOT of toe.

what do you run?

I went with what I heard, but I'm still a noob and have a lot to learn. Maybe it's to much, I honestly don't know

[Hoodoo Man]

wow Carl, can hardly call you a noobie with that write up and work!

[nostaw]

I still say 1/8" is a LOT of toe.

what do you run?

I went with what I heard, but I'm still a noob and have a lot to learn. Maybe it's to much, I honestly don't know

I had mine done by Lou @ Elias, so I can't give you a measurement in inches -- and the paperwork I've got is in degrees, so that won't help without a bunch of math.

1/8" just seems like a lot to me... Unfortunately, I don't have a better # for you. Just keep an eye on your tires and see if you think they're scrubbing off... If you see curls of rubber in the tread blocks you know it is wearing too fast.

My sense is that the toe is ~1.5 deg for my front end, but I'm not confident in that number either...

JW

[Carl McFly]

1/8 inch total toe in is obviously 1/16 inch per wheel. My quick and dirty math suggests that my toe in approx .5 degrees. Actually my math came in at about 35 minutes but need to stress that this is HS math and HS was a long time ago. I could be way off. Anyone here current on Pythagoreans theorem?

[nostaw]

1/8 inch total toe in is obviously 1/16 inch per wheel. My quick and dirty math suggests that my toe in approx .5 degrees. Actually my math came in at about 35 minutes but need to stress that this is HS math and HS was a long time ago. I could be way off. Anyone here current on Pythagoreans theorem?

That sounds like what I'd expect.

SOA-CAH-TOA is your friend!

JW