1961 tie rod issues

Back again with more questions. I decided to throw all new tie rods on my 61 since they looked like they needed it. Did a lot of research and the part numbers that seem to pop up are ES317R for inner and ES317L for outer. I got the tie rods put on pretty quick and took it into the shop to get an alignment done. They call me and say it looks like one of the tie rod ends is defective. Seemed kind of strange but I figure it can happen, so I take the car back home. I get a new part and swap out the one they say is bad. Take it back in and they say it still won't align and that another tie rod might be bad. I tell them to keep it and find the right part. They contact me a few days later and now say the adjusting sleeve is stripped out and they will order a new one. The next time they call, they say that the new sleeve didn't work and they have ordered all new tie rods from a restoration shop! So now I'm really confused. I searched the internet high and low and the part numbers that always come up are ES317R and ES317L no matter the brand. I can't seem to find anything else but those. Did the 1960-1961 have some kind of unique tie rod ends or are they just doing something wrong at the shop?

Let me know of any advice or info....something doesn't seem right on this.

thanks,
Andrew

Did they ever say what it was they couldn't accomplish due to what they were seeing? How, other than extreme wear, could they say a tie-rod is defective? Was the taper too small/big (sloppy in the spindle)? Was it that they were trying to toe-out and it was running out of thread to draw the tie-rods inward enough?

Anyway, sounds very fishy. But need to know more about what they were claiming it wasn't or was doing.

Roger,

Thanks for the response. It all seems to be something wrong with the threading on the new tie rod ends, at least that is what they think. Even though when I installed all the new tie rod ends the first time they went in smooth and easy. The first time they said it wasn't keeping the alignment, they mentioned that when they would adjust one tie rod end it would move the other one they weren't adjusting. So it seemed screwing one in more would push the other one out. Pretty strange. The parts didn't act weird or strange when I installed them on the car. With the new parts they just ordered, that will be 3 different brands......hard to believe that the new parts they ordered will fix the problem.

thanks,
Andrew

Still sound fishy to me.

Tie-rods are supposed to be at a length with the adjusting sleeve so that when they are in the middle of their travel there is enough room left to move toe-in as much as may be needed either + or -.

You might have gone elsewhere for a second opinion. Falcons might be confusing guys used to working on rack-n-pinion steering.

Roger,

Yeah I guess I will see what the "new" tie rod ends that they ordered do. They are supposed to be in tomorrow. I have a feeling that they will do the same thing as the other parts. After that I guess I will take it somewhere else. Hope I can get this figured out. I don't want a $70 alignment to turn into a $500 dollar job.

Thanks again,
Andrew

Just a thought......there's not a specific left or right side part for the inner or outer tie rods right? Basically if I bought 2 inner or 2 outer tie rod ends it wouldn't matter which side they went on, as long as I used the inner in the correct place and the outer in the correct place....this is the only thing I could think of that might cause a problem. But if they were left or right side specific you would think they wouldn't even thread on if I had them on the wrong side.....man this whole thing is driving me kinda crazy!

You'll have outers with a thread going in one direction and inner threads in the opposite direction. In theory, if the taper and shape of the tie-rods are identical, it would not matter if the inners and outers got swapped. Basically you'd put them as they are called-out-as just so you could know to buy the correct part in the future if it needed replacement. In the end you clearly can't have two inners on one side and two outers on the other, no matter what.

Considering the tie-rods only adjust toe, they can only be a) too long, b) too short, c) incorrect thread depth/length/diameter, or d) wrong taper, or e) wrong shape (to cause binding against the drag link or spindle). I can think of nothing to cause the adjustment of one side to "move" the other side. Adjusting one side increases the 'overall' toe and position of the steering wheel. You shift centering the steering wheel by moving each side the same amount so as to keep toe the same, but rotate the steering wheel in relation to the drag link.

Anyway... makes me nervous when I hear shops give vague descriptions of failure. They'll make profit on these new parts. That much is for sure.

Not sure where you are, but Gene turned me onto a shop up north (south Everett) who's done my Ranchero twice. They knew what they were doing.

Yeah I've done a lot of tie rod replacements and have gotten alignments from this same shop many times and never had a problem, at least on my other newer cars. This whole thing is really bizarre, especially considering the 61 has been in the shop for almost 2 weeks!

I'm actually down in Tulsa, OK but you guys on here have helped me out immensely on numerous times with my old car and I really appreciate it!

The new parts that the shop ordered yesterday are supposed to be in today, so once I hear something I will report back here. I don't see how the ones they ordered are going to be any different than all the other parts we have already tried. I really think they are just overlooking something simple or they just aren't doing something right. But I guess we will see soon enough.

Thanks again for all the input!

-Andrew

The owner of the shop (American Car Care in Everett) that Roger is referring to stated to me that the "young kids" don't know how to align our older cars. I've had mine done there twice, and as Roger stated, he's had his done twice there. Also my son's '69 Mustang, but not sure if that falls in the same category.

Still haven't heard any status updates today.

I had another thought.

From what I can gather online the outer tie rod ends should be Right Hand thread, and the inner tie rod ends should be Left hand thread. Is it possible that somehow an inner and outer got switched? Or would a LH thread tie rod even start to thread into to something that was supposed to be RH hand thread? Maybe I got a wrongly labeled part and somehow they got mixed up? I'm really second guessing everything about the whole situation.

RH thread will NOT start on LH thread or vice versa!

Andrew - you'da never got it together well enough to drive it there at all if the parts got mixed up. You could'a swapped the entire inner/sleeve/outer as an assembly end-for-end (assuming the tapers and tie-rod shapes are the same), but it would'a still allowed for the same amount of adjustment.

Will be interesting to hear what finally comes of this.

Andrew, not everyone on this site will comment on this because we don't have as much knowledge as others. But, after reading this post a couple of times, I think I hurt myself. Please keep us informed on how this turns out. Thanks and best of luck. Larry

Well after everything was said and done, the new set of tie rods that the shop ordered actually worked. Got the car back and everything seems good, actually drives really nice and straight.

I don't think I will every know exactly what the problem was. After sitting down and talking to owner of the shop, I think the big problem was that they seemed to keep getting tie rods that were RH thread when they needed a LH thread. Maybe a supplier or parts label problem. It's hard to say. I think both me and the shop tried to figure the problem out from so many different positions, something got mixed up somewhere and only compounded things.

Before the shop was just thinking it was one single tie rod that was causing the problem, but after they ordered a whole new set and took everything off and put the new set on....whatever the problem or kink was probably worked itself out.

The whole thing was pretty dang crazy, but the bill wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be and the car does drive really good. Oh and the parts they got that finally worked were from NAPA.

Thanks so much for all the help on this everyone, it is much appreciated!!!

-Andrew

Did they give your your old/new parts back? Would have been nice to see pics of what you had. If not, oh well. What is important is you are safe and sane after all is said and done!

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