Tie rod ends with new drop spindles

[trulordd]

I have read through tons of tie rod end issues and none seem to be exactly like mine.

I am currently re-assembling the front end and have hit another snag.
First off the history; when I gotthe truck someone had already updated the front end with power steering and linkage (it seems), 5 lug rotors and disc brakes. So that is some of the good.

I decided to go with new drop spindles and decided to go with 63-70 Mcgauphy drop spindles which I got for an amazing deal, new never mounted for trade for some other hobby stuff (so I couldnt pass it up). Upon re assembly I found that the ball joints werent the right ones so I swapped them out for the '64 models and there it was. All went back together perfectly.

UNTIL, I went to install the tie rod ends into the spindles and the existing tie rods wont even go into the hole on the spindle. My thinnking is that the previous person used a donor truck of some sort for the entire front end.

I would rather just change out a few tie rod ends back to the '64 versus major linkage changes. Any ideas on this? I have looked up some of the parts that came on the '64s and looks as though the original sleeves were longer and tie rods were shorter. Thanks for any help with this and I plan to post pics later today to help

[michael bustamante]

when they changed the front end to disk they most likely changed the steering rack as well
to accomdate from the same doner veh.
your best bet (and of course i just scrapped mine from my 67 ) is to find the original steering rack assy again

[BR3W CITY]

You probably have the 71-72 or 73+ stuff swapped in. If you got power steering etc, but the tie rods didn't fit, then it was probably the whole crossmember swapped over.

Do you have metal end-caps or rubber bushing-caps on your control arms?

[trulordd]

the lower has metal caps and the upper A arm has rubber bushings.
Luckily I found someone locally that has a reamer setup to open the hole some. Seems to be plenty of metal around this area so I should only have to pay the labor and no parts

[BR3W CITY]

that sounds like a 71-72 lower and a 73+ upper. My guess is someone took a donor crossmember or partial-crossmember to gain the power steering and such. When you put the knuckles and ball joints on, you half-converted it back to the pre 71 style.

It'll all work together, just be REALLY patient with your alignment guy if he gets confused.

[trulordd]

Yep, there really isn't a since to fix or change what ain't broke. As long as the truck is safe and works properly it should be fine