The Currie Heavy Duty Tie Rod System includes the heavy duty drag link assembly, the H-D tie rod set with tie rod ends and the steering stabilizer bracket. It does not include the steering stabilizer. This install was done on a 2003 Rubicon with a 3.5" RE LA.
Here are all the parts you should have in the kit. We had a split tie rod end boot so I had to use one of the polurethene ones.
The first thing you have to do is remove the old tie rod, drag link and stabilizer. To do this you first remove the 4 cotter pins from the castle nuts. The castle nuts are on each tie rod end shown above the drag link connection to the pitman arm and the connection between the tie rod and drag link. After removing the cotter pins loosen don't remove the two castle nuts on the tie rod ends.
You now can jack the Jeep up and remove the front tires. We used a couple jack stands blocks and left the jack under the Jeep. As you can see from the picture it is really easy to get at the tie rod end with the tire removed. We left the castle nut on so when we used the puller we didn't shoot the end out. We had no problem breaking the end loose with the puller and didn't damage the boot.
Here is the tie rod removed.
We again loosened the castle nut but did not remove it till we broke the end loose. To remove the drag link we used a pickle fork and a BFH. It took a number of whacks but wasn't too hard to remove. We used the pickle fork because there was not enough room for the puller we had.
After removing the old tie rod and drag link we assembled the new parts. We laid it down next to the old one and duplicated the length as close as possible. We installed the castle nut and tie rod for the drag link tie rod connection torqued it to 55 pounds and inserted the cotter pin. As we inserted the cotter pin we put a bend in it so it was easier to insert. We also insert the 4 grease zerks at this time.
The next step was to attach the drag link to the pitman arm and torque it to 55 pounds and then insert the cotter pin. Always tighten if the cotter pin doesn't quite line up.
We then tightened and torqued the tie rod ends to 55 pounds and inserted the cotter pins.
To adjust the steering wheel all you do is rotate the connector on the drag link. This can be done at any time.
The final step is to attach the stabilizer. We used an Old Man Emu stabilizer and because of the rock guard I am now worrying about it hitting the front track bar, it is real close. I will update this if there is a problem. It looks like you are don but not quite you need to do 2 more things the first is to attach a grease gun to all 4 grease zerks and pump some grease in and the second is to either align the front wheels yourself or bring it to someone who will.
CUOFFRD
Mark n Sherri Patrol 6
