Ford 8/10 hp Track Rod Ends on a special?

[Nick Lettington]

I am looking to lengthen my steering side tube by about 2 inches in order to accommodate the wider track of a Speedex IFS axle. The geometry is all a little fluid at the moment,  so it might be useful to have it adjustable for length.

The Speedex track rod is adjustable and has (I believe) Ford 10hp track rod ends. 

It seems to me that the taper on the Ford track rod ends is similar if not identical to that on the balls of the Austin steering side tube (or drag link if you prefer). 

Is there a good reason why I can't replace the front end of my side tube with the end of a Ford track rod, providing the rotation necessary for steering and adjustment? I can't do the back end or it will foul the chassis...

Does anyone know of a later track rod end with a similarly slender taper that could be used in place of the Ford ones? (i.e. less rare and therefore not too pricey!)

[A G Wood]

Hi Nick,
there is a firm here (in NZ) who have the technology and, it seems, the certification to overhaul/modify steering/suspension joints and can incorporate any taper on the rod end pins that you might want in the rebuild process. In my case,  I had some Ford 5000 tractor tie rod ends (which fortuitously happened to have the correct female thread) re-pinned to match the tapers in my 'Not-An-Austin-Seven' steering arms on my 'Not-An-Austin-Seven' at a very moderate cost, which turned out to be a lot less than I would've spent on the NOS set which I (much) later came across.
I would be surprised if there wasn't someone, somewhere in the UK doing the same thing?
I have also seen taper reamers used on steering arms, and also steering arms heated and the existing bore drifted with a suitably tapered drift [or even a sacrificial ball joint] to match up tapers [car Bogans...enough said] but maybe A7 ones are too light to survive these dodgy practices.
Regards
AGW

[Stuart Giles]

Pretty well all steering tapers on vehicles are 1 in 8, i.e. 1 1/2" per foot -just over 7 degrees included angle. The early Ford ones I've machined are the same taper. 

The tapers are fairly easy to cut yourself if you can make (or get a mate to make) a tapered 'D' bit from a piece of hardened and tempered silver steel.  Here's one I prepared earlier to modify a steering arm for a 1936 Chevrolet.



Reamers with the correct 1 in 8 taper are available, but all the ones I've seen are huge, more suitable for large commercials.

[A G Wood]

Yep, that's the story Stuart! I'd clean forgotten that virtually all the tapers were 1 in 8. If I recall correctly the reamed ones were done with a tapered multi flute 'chassis reamer' like the ones sheetmetal guys sometimes use [taper  from something like 10mm dia to 25mm dia over their length]. The heat-and-swage technique made me nervous watching it, but it worked. Nothing snapped off so far as I know, but I doubt you'd get away with it nowadays under the eye of a Low Volume Vehicle Certifier without a lot of finishing work to remove the evidence...

[Nick Lettington]

Thanks both. That is very useful to know. I know just the chap to make the tool.