Broke my Bronco’s tie rod on rack and pinion 🤬

[Bronco1971]

Well, you're simplifying it quite a bit...depends on the alloy of the steel, carbon content, heat treating and hardening, etc.

Well,... it has been 32 years since I took a strength of materials course.

But seriously, watching a rod break in a Tinius Olsen machine is eye opening in the terms of failure modes and the amount of energy involved.

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[WuNgUn]

Well,... it has been 32 years since I took a strength of materials course.

But seriously, watching a rod break in a Tinius Olsen machine is eye opening in the terms of failure modes and the amount of energy involved.

I remember a metallurgist friend of mine showing me a tungsten sample for TO machine and then a magnesium sample. I almost punched myself in the face when I picked up the magnesium one!
If you look at that other thread where buddy broke both tierods and his rack, you can clearly see how much it deformed before it let go. And it looks like quite a bit!

 

[GreenMtnBronco]

Broken tie rods, blown 2.7 engines, recalled hard tops, air bag recall, cv clips busting off, radiator hoses failing off, brake booster issues, electrical issues, any thing else I miss?

wireless phone charging pad overheats phones and causes them to shut down.

 

[bytheway]

@bman3000 maybe they can help if you are still looking for tie rods

 

[BAUS67]

Well, this thread is all over the place. In a solid axle one could say that the u-joint is the weakest link.




That SNAP looked very similar to the Bronco on the logs. Not much input but just enough in the wrong direction.

I doesn't take much to snap one that is not "beefy" enough. I have seen many Dana 44's snap their wheel joints when pushed in between two rocks. As stated earlier it is ALOT of stress that is why rock crawlers use Dana 60's with wheel joints that are the size of your fist.


By the way a ....................



...................has a titanium tub to protect the pilot. Since we were talking about metallurgy and Broncos.

 

[BAUS67]

@bman3000 maybe they can help if you are still looking for tie rods

I was just about to post this.

 

[BAUS67]

And then there is something like this.......






Which will be the way I lean. Only bad thing here it will transition all that stress to the rack. So that will be the weak link. But at least the tie rod won't fail.



It looks very similar to his 4400 KOH Bronc.




just throwing it out there in case some aren't following this delema closely.

 

[Felix808]

Which will be the way I lean. Only bad thing here it will transition all that stress to the rack. So that will be the weak link. But at least the tie rod won't fail.

Yep that 's the problem. I can change a lot of $70 inner tie rods before I see the cost of a $1200 rack all while being a basic trail repair. Not so much with the rack YMMV

 

[bman3000]

@bman3000 maybe they can help if you are still looking for tie rods

Any idea how to get ahold of him? Couldn’t message on tik tok and I don’t think Broncbuster on B6G is the same person.

 

[bman3000]

Any idea how to get ahold of him? Couldn’t message on tik tok and I don’t think Broncbuster on B6G is the same person.

Never mind I found him. Couple suggestions but nothing getting fixed to day.

 

[XirallicBolts]

My Raptor's navigation was off by like 30ft (to the east) and they told me it was because I was on 37s

*To be fair*, Sync relies more on wheel rotation than the GPS. Messing around with video-in-motion, I'd replace the "vehicle in drive" messages with "vehicle in reverse" and the map would run backwards. The gps is just occasional calibration, not realtime positioning.

 

[Lazerus]

It happens to the best of us!
Kevin snaps his tie rod @ 13:55 in this new video.
Granted, that was a hell of an obstacle he was trying to get over...




You can see the drag link bending before the tie rod snaps. Just a crazy amount of pressure put on those components...
LMAO:
"I thought we weren't going to do dumb things today?" .... a few minutes later... SNAP!

 

[21BL2DR]

Note to self. Be sure to always carry a welder in the back. That is unacceptable from Ford.

 

[Flourman]

I’ve been out of off-roading for a while, but there is a certain aspect of being prepared. Carrying spares? I’m glad there are people that are out wheeling hard and finding the weak points but if people would have just looked at common IFS failures when off-roading, they would see the tie rods are the weak point. I’m also glad there was someone that had a welder to help the OP fix it (someone that was prepared). I just don’t think people are seeing the fact that the Jeep’s that do these things (in stock form) break too.

How many people remember the c-clip Dana 35’s in the Jeeps? Hell the aftermarket even made a kit to hold the axle in to get a vehicle back to camp.

If you are going to off-road (specifically in stock form), get a trail spare kit. If you can afford a Bronco, you can afford some spares. U-joints for the driveshafts, tie rods, spare CV’s and likely a few other things. You get tired of doing trail fixes, start upgrading which then starts the wallet death spiral as it just pushes the failure point to something more expensive.

I think the majority of people responding in this thread have never done much for off-roading let alone fixed stuff on the side of the trail.

 

[KyleQ]

Good point but I don't see the CV as a fail point yet, BroncBuster is on some nasty tires with a manual with wheel hop and they have not popped, they won't with stock and 37" tires either.

Spare tie rod ends seems like a simple answer - make note of the thread count before as well so the alignment will stay close.

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