Tie Rod and Steering Upgrade Recommendations?

[routhless]

I treated myself and the Bronco this Christmas to a 4” coilover lift, upper control arms and an adjustable rear track bar, and have plans for 37s next. My question is what other upgrades should I consider doing when the lift gets installed? Tie rods are an obvious upgrade that’s needed, especially with a lift and bigger tires - any real defining pros and cons to the sleeves vs a beefier tie rod kit? I’d rather replace tie rods than a steering rack but I’m curious to hear some of y’all’s experiences with different options, different brands, etc. Any other components I should look at upgrading at the same time?

I’ve done a good bit of reading and research on my own but am hoping to hear more personal experiences

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[5GENIDN]

My recommendation.... and I am sure you will hear may different ones, do not upgrade the tie rods until you upgrade the rack..... You will need to do both with that lift and 37s! assuming you go off road at all. several levels to approach the rack. bushings, Bronc buster and rough country, then there is BBs partial rack replacement and 74 Weld partial rack replacement with bushings. Then there is the complete 74 Weld rack. Personally my choice but it is also very expensive.

I highly recommend this video. no matter what you decide it is informative.

 

[Baja Bronco]

Depends on your budget, depends on your thought process too. I’ve never liked the sleeves or half shafts. Once again, that’s only my opinion.

After some searching and reviewing, I went with Foutz Motorsports tie rods. They definitely aren’t cheap, $1K. Billet and beautiful, plus they are right up the street from me.

Of course, now I’ve taken the weak link from the rods, to the box. I plan on upgrading to either a Hoss or 74Weld set up eventually.

If you’re off roading with 37s or bigger, you’ll definitely need something.

 

[Valhalla]

The rack look @Snacktime build and logs on experience.

 

[5GENIDN]

The rack look @Snacktime build and logs on experience.

Agree with Valalla... Snacktime is definitely someone you should look up. He has done a lot of real world testing and upgrades If you want real world experience with these racks.

 

[routhless]

Depends on your budget, depends on your thought process too. I’ve never liked the sleeves or half shafts. Once again, that’s only my opinion.

After some searching and reviewing, I went with Foutz Motorsports tie rods. They definitely aren’t cheap, $1K. Billet and beautiful, plus they are right up the street from me.

Of course, now I’ve taken the weak link from the rods, to the box. I plan on upgrading to either a Hoss or 74Weld set up eventually.

If you’re off roading with 37s or bigger, you’ll definitely need something.

That’s fair - the thought of the sleeves makes me a tad nervous cause it’s only a “bandaid” fix. Obviously they’re the cheapest option so financially they look the best but I’m not confident in them enough to say they’re the route I want to take - maybe temporarily but definitely not long term.

I don’t have a set budget per say, I’m just looking for what I think the best option for me will be while keeping it reasonably priced. I don’t want to cheap out just to save money and regret it in the long run you know? So I’m willing to spend what I need to in order to get the set up I think will be most valuable to me.

Most of my off-roading is fairly tame, as North Georgia doesn’t have anything too crazy to offer. But I do take road trips fairly regularly and plan on taking the Bronco off-road while I’m out to experience those types of trails I can’t get back home. So while I’m not rock crawling every single weekend, I’d like to know that if I ever get a wild hair up my ass and want to try it I can

 

[routhless]

Agree with Valalla... Snacktime is definitely someone you should look up. He has done a lot of real world testing and upgrades If you want real world experience with these racks.

I’ll look him up, thank you both!

 

[Ninjak]

It depends on what you are going to do with your RIG. Some have never upgraded the tie rods, or the steering has done fine. It really comes down to the driver mostly.

If you are going rock crawling, then some of the steering upgrades may be necessary. If you doing trails, maybe the tie rods are only needed. I have done trails in S. FL, and have not had an issue. I will up grade to the fabtech tie rods eventually as I run 37's. But again, it comes to how you drive your RIG IMO.

 

[routhless]

It depends on what you are going to do with your RIG. Some have never upgraded the tie rods, or the steering has done fine. It really comes down to the driver mostly.

If you are going rock crawling, then some of the steering upgrades may be necessary. If you doing trails, maybe the tie rods are only needed. I have done trails in S. FL, and have not had an issue. I will up grade to the fabtech tie rods eventually as I run 37's. But again, it comes to how you drive your RIG IMO.

Oh for sure, I’m in North Georgia so there’s nothing too crazy here. And that’s why i was curious to see who’s upgraded what and how it’s worked for them so far in different scenarios.

Pretty regularly I take long road trips and try to do some offroading while I’m somewhere new when I can to experience those types of trails I can’t get back home. I’m definitely not rock crawling every single weekend, but knowing that I could if I wanted to helps

 

[Valhalla]

I live in Chattanooga, you can get pretty extreme in N. GA. If you are going to wheel and explore I'd say you need minimum of 3.0 rack, to be safe.

 

[BlueBronco]

If you are just doing some mild wheeling then save yourself some money and just carry an extra inner tie-rod with your recovery gear as cheap insurance.

The whole zomg! your tie-rod will explode if you go off road is way over blown. And as pointed out, mostly comes down to the driver (coupled with a locked front diff and misuse of the skinny pedal at an inopportune time)

 

[GI_Jo_Nathan]

If you are just doing some mild wheeling then save yourself some money and just carry an extra inner tie-rod with your recovery gear as cheap insurance.

This is what I decided to do. I also did the Rough Country bushings as a little cheap insurance.
Granted I'm also not on 37's and don't rock crawl.

 

[Snacktime]

Well the answer is expensive! The most bulletproof option is a full 74weld rack. So do I really think everyone needs one? No.

I would do rough country bushings and run stock tie rods. If you break a tie rod replace it. After 2-3 tie rods you will need to most likely replace the rack. By this point you should have gotten some performance issues. Slop or overheating should occur making the unit unserviceable. This way you have gotten as much life out of the rack as possible. Most people don't need to go farther than this.

Next stage is buying a Hoss 3.0, you get upgraded tie rods and a more robust unit. Run it stock till you have problems. Pretty sure you can safely run Icon Tie rods and Ford Performance tie rods with little risk to the steering rack. I would just stick with replacing HoSs 3.0 since they seem to live a pretty decent amount of time. Your buying life not strength. Do something stupid and you will still kill a steering rack.

Bad aid is the passenger housing, it really doesn't buy you more life. Rough country bushings take you 90% the way to these big ticket items. The internals still seem to die a slow death over time. I do think you get some life, but you don't get double the life. Leading me to say money is better spent on a new steering rack in the future. Way to many people are replacing fully built HOSS 1.0, this leads me to it's not worth it.

The miracle is you can take a overheating and faulting rack and give it new life in a full 74weld housing. The motor will still eventually burn out, but you essentially double the racks life. 74Weld Racks can handle stupidity but they still stall out like stock.

Tie rods, Ford tie rods are the best! Why? They seem to have the longest service life. This means wear and slop are minimal with time. This is why HOSS 3.0 tie rods are a very good upgrade and make the HoSS 3.0 rack the next step. This is why staying with stock tie rods isn't a bad thing.

Icon tie rods are beefy, seem to be right in line with HOSS 3.0. I hope to long term test these and see how the slop is. I think they are the best value for replacements on the market.

Sleeves, I killed my stock rack with just JKS sleeves so I avoid recommending them. I rather replace 1-2 tie rods before get stuck with a $1000 repair. I still have only replaced 1 stock tie rod.

 

[1st 75th ranger]

I treated myself and the Bronco this Christmas to a 4” coilover lift, upper control arms and an adjustable rear track bar, and have plans for 37s next. My question is what other upgrades should I consider doing when the lift gets installed? Tie rods are an obvious upgrade that’s needed, especially with a lift and bigger tires - any real defining pros and cons to the sleeves vs a beefier tie rod kit? I’d rather replace tie rods than a steering rack but I’m curious to hear some of y’all’s experiences with different options, different brands, etc. Any other components I should look at upgrading at the same time?

I’ve done a good bit of reading and research on my own but am hoping to hear more personal experiences

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i use bronco buster ...easy install in drive way & i can rotate to look i like ..i have my hardware showing vrs writing and it looks great ...

 

[Oldhippie]

I am going with RC bushings and carrying extra stock tie rods for now…stronger tie rods are an excellent way to break a stock rack and leave ya stranded imho…listen to snacktime…

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