That's about it Dan.  Spec is good.... the lock nut holds everything in place so you just need to take up the initial flex in the rubber bush.  

When you hit the brakes the car pushes on the end of the tie rod - or maybe its better to think that the wheel pulls back??

In any case the load is between the bracket and the washer on the outer end of the tie rod.

I know this sure because when the tie rod lets go, the wheel slams into the back of the arch and the car turns hard right....  

Cheers, Ian

 

Ian / 1963SV2:

For clarity, can you be a bit more precise on "fit the poly bush to the front with a rubber one behind"? Do you mean "front of car" as in "rubber bush goes on tie rod, insert tie rod into subframe ear, add ply bush and nut and torque to spec? " ("spec" meaning speculation in this case...) Thx.

 

As I said before .. perhaps not that explicitly - make sure you fit the poly bush to the front with a rubber one behind.  Then do the nut up until the rear bush is slightly compressed.  Must admit I've not actually thought of using a torque wrench - but then with non standard bits - what torque should you use?

 If you do use two rubber bushes then just compress them both slightly.

The reason you want a poly front bush is to keep the tie rod length constant under heavy braking.  Other wise you get caster changes which results in weaving as you stop....

The reason you want a rubber bush at the back is that the tie rod pivots on the bracket as front ride height moves up and down. Without this flexibility the tie rod itself will flex.  This is not good ..as I can personally attest.  I missed the light pole by thiiiiiiss much...

Which is all a bit off topic...

Cheers, Ian

Ok, I saw the collar cup cake is talking about. If you screw in the nut that far, you will basically end up with the bushing less than half its original thickness. That would certainly take more than the recommended 19ft lbs, and probably permanently deform and crack the bushing. Is that what most people are doing?

19 ft.lbs is about what the 5/16ths nut holding your tie-rod to the lower arm takes...not much more than a good nudge after snugging up that nut.  Not much more than 20-22 ft.lbs. and that 5/16ths nyloc nut will strip.

Or half of the force 40 ft.lbs. to tighten your wheel nuts or to tourque your head studs....

19 ft. lbs. is not a lot of force, you can easily exceed it with a hand held ratchet wrench.

1963 is right, when using a crow's foot with a torque wrench the moment arm is changed so it is important to calculate the new number to use for that situation, there are lots of great links on the internet with the needed formulas to do it correctly:

//www.engineersedge.com/manufacturing_spec/torque_wrench_1.htm

https://www.motorcraftservice.com/renderers/torquewrench/wrench_formula_main_en.asp

//www.finishing.com/118/94_crows_foot_torque.shtml

//www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general-archive/torque-crows-foot-96728/

…and so on.

Note that the simplest solution is to install the crow's foot 90deg from the wrench so that its shape does NOT increase the moment arm.

By the way, another approach, simpler but rougher (another place where this comes in handy is on the manifold nuts, where the space is too limited for a torque wrench): torque some easily accessible nut to the target torque, then put your open-ended wrench that you are going to use to torque the difficult to access nut to, and feel what that torque feels like, with the same wrench and hand position, then try to turn the object nut to the same feeling. It is not as sure a thing, but it can work well enough if you are careful and double check your work.

Norm

50/50 rubber/plastic is OK... just make sure you get them the right way 'round...    

Cheers, Ian

PS physics 101 was a looong time ago.. but wouldn't jeg's crows foot change the lenght of the lever - and hence the torque reading????? (slap downs readilly accepted if )

P2s - do them up with the car on its wheels --- just make sure the rubber is a bit squished....

And there's the first problem - the bushes should be rubber, not plastic.

Duh! There's a collar on the end of the tie-rod for the nut to bottom-out on.

I use a crow-foot ring spanner on the torque wrench.

//www.stahlwille-online.de/index.php?amac=03030002000e&sid=-1&lid=2&mid=2&shid=&scmd=pdetail&pcid=&cid=3559&pid=3289

Alternatively, dedicated insert tools for my torque wrenches are available, but one can't have everything... 

//www.stahlwille.de/en/products/online-catalogue/

I don't get it, how do you bottom out an open ended nut? You can keep turning and turning and crushing the plastic bushing as much as your strength allows.

Or as Calver says... "tighten until it shears, then back off half a turn."

["shears" = "snaps in two"]

 

I've always done them till the nut bottoms out, which is also why a lot of people pulled the end off their tierods when fitting poly bushes.

That tension will affect caster more tight - more Neg Caster - Less tight less neg caster

Above all   100% make sure you are installing good condition "new" Nyloc Nuts... That the nylon has bit down into the thread...

 

 Good n squished is what i try to achieve.

 

I'm trying to figure out how much to squeeze the front tie rod bushings (where the tie rods attach to the subframe near the bumper). I can't get a torque wrench in there and I have no feel for what 19 ft lbs feels like (or whatever the number is in Haynes). Is there a rule of thumb as to how much to turn the nylon nut or how much squeeze there should be to the outer bushing?