Does anyone have experience with the bearing type tie rods? The steering in my car was “overhauled” in true country fashion…spray enough crap all over it to hold any fluid in and hide all the cracked rubber. I’ll probably rebuild the steering box myself and might as well replace the tie rods but I didn’t know if there was any value to using the bearing type over the standard ones.

You mean uniball or heim? I have them only because I had a clearance issue for my new front discs. I had to discard relatively new conventional ball joints and center link for these. They work really well for me; steering has to be about as tight is it gets on these cars. Still a little bit of vague feel when going fast and straight, but not really any slop. Car steers well.

I think that for the mileage that the average 500 user does over a number of years, the standard track-rods will suffice. As 'Uaglio' says, he only got them for a specific reason.

Uaglio said:

You mean uniball or heim? I have them only because I had a clearance issue for my new front discs. I had to discard relatively new conventional ball joints and center link for these. They work really well for me; steering has to be about as tight is it gets on these cars. Still a little bit of vague feel when going fast and straight, but not really any slop. Car steers well.

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Those are the ones I was looking at. I’m not super concerned with staying original here because it can easily be put back and I drive the car pretty regularly so better handling (relatively speaking) is what I’m focused on

Yup. Got them from Ricambio. They will certainly work. But they are really a racing application - they don’t come with rubber boots to cover the joints; you have to clean and reapply PTFE dry lube periodically to maintain them. That’s not an issue with mine - it never goes out in rain or bad weather. But these are definitely less practical than the original style traditional greased and rubber-booted socket ball joints.

Thanks all. I just ordered the standard set and the bits for the steering box. New project for next weekend.

Assuming that the alignment is decent, and I measure extra carefully, how much do I have to worry about alignment? I think I know the answer but would like to be wrong.

Veloman518 said:

Thanks all. I just ordered the standard set and the bits for the steering box. New project for next weekend.

Assuming that the alignment is decent, and I measure extra carefully, how much do I have to worry about alignment? I think I know the answer but would like to be wrong.

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Make sure your track rods are the same length and check your toe afterwards and you'll be fine. My toe was way out of wack and with a makeshift tool, I was able to get it within ~2mm.

Which type of track-rod you fit will make no difference to the road holding as they have to be set to the same measurement. As Matt (Jumpjet) says, the important thing is to get the track-rods to be the same length and that is the fiddly bit (to put it mildly). I would go for as little toe-in as you can get--"0" if possible.

the hobbler said:

Which type of track-rod you fit will make no difference to the road holding as they have to be set to the same measurement. As Matt (Jumpjet) says, the important thing is to get the track-rods to be the same length and that is the fiddly bit (to put it mildly). I would go for as little toe-in as you can get--"0" if possible.

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0 unloaded Tom?

According to the "book of words" Joe, toe-in is set when "the car is in a static load condition or with an orderly (!?) load of 4 passengers" Being that the 500s these days are normally driven with a maximum of 2 people in them, I would suggest that you put a couple of big bags of sand (or similar) on the front seats and then set the toe-in to "0". Don't forget to get the track-rods the the same length.

Spent the afternoon spraying, soaking, scraping and chiseling spray on undercoating off the steering bits. What a mess.

I have it to the point where I can at least soda blast the crud off, then disassembly of the steering box and a bath in the ultrasonic cleaner before a rebuild.

On the upside it’s amazing the abuse these little cars will tolerate.

Anyone have a steering worm spindle in good shape for a 500L? Mine appears to be bent

Hi Veloman - I just PM’d you with a suggestion.

So I have a fully disassembled steering box if anyone wants to see anything in particular. I haven’t gotten the taper bearings off yet. I assume a gear puller will do it?

Torque on the tie rod bolts to their fittings ....same on all bolts? The fitting on the wheel stub seemed to tighten up much faster than the idler arm and the one on the idler arm protruded much further out. Just verifying because Haynes only mentions the bolts at the wheel end.

Should have this all back together in a few days and get to see if the clunking and the float at speed has gone away at all.

Thanks

Uaglio said:

You mean uniball or heim? I have them only because I had a clearance issue for my new front discs. I had to discard relatively new conventional ball joints and center link for these. They work really well for me; steering has to be about as tight is it gets on these cars. Still a little bit of vague feel when going fast and straight, but not really any slop. Car steers well.

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Hi, I have the same problem since I fitted the same disk brake kit. Thanks to your suggestion and post I will solve it in the same way. I ordered the Uniball ball joint kit from Ricambio. Thanks for the post It was very helpful.