playbass

Finally got around to putting the ZJ tie rod in.

My steering wheel is now a little off center, so I must not have measured the wheels and/or old tie rod correctly.

Should I just go ahead and get an alignment or would it be easier to work with the adjusting sleeve till I'm back to center?

Xj88

The drag link centers the steering wheel not the tie rod

playbass

Is it more likely that I bent the drag link then when I was installing the tie rod? Though, the tie rod connects to the drag link, so if it isn't the right length, I would think it could throw the steering wheel off, but I'm just speculating.

I did noticed my drag link had some play even before I took the old tie rod off.

Xj88

Just get your toe adjustment right then adjust the drag link till the wheel is centered

playbass

gotcha. I just found some videos about adjusting the drag link, I'll take a look at the toe again and get this fixed. thanks.

No4x4Yet

While this is true, if the toe is off it could cause the steer wheel to be "off center". Like you said check the toe before adjusting the drag link.

playbass

Yup, the toe just needed adjustment, it took all of 5 minutes. Thanks for the tips, the new tie rod is awesome.

DualSportDad

Thanks for this thread. Made the conversion straight forward for me.

2qk4u

just did this and liking it so far

salad

For all you lads that did this: did anybody else have a ***** of a time getting the grease fittings into the TREs? The holes in mine weren't even threaded, I had to get the taps out Is that normal?

Also for those of you who can't drop by AZ and get these for cheap, RockAuto carries a Mevotech brand which was significantly cheaper and seems to be of similar quality to at least some of the Moog bits. I got the adjusting sleeves and a new drag link from them.

94XjSport94

Yes I had the same damn problem. I had to tap mine too.

salad

the Mevotech drag link didn't need tapping lol

I did all of my steering junk at the same time as it looked fairly old and I lifted it with a new axle. As far as I could tell, the XJ and ZJ drag links have the same specs, but the XJ drag link was cheaper It seems to be as beefy as the tie rod, so close enough.

I ended up buying Moog DS1312, 2x Moog ES3096L, Mevotech MDS1238, and 2x Mevotech MES2079S. Entire steering linkage for a pretty good price.

PocketsEmpty

I got new tie rods for my car that came with zerks and had untapped holes for them. I didn't get it at first either, but then realized the metal was too thin for a good thread pattern there anyway and just wrenched them in. Worked fine.

ZJ tie rod....hmmm need to do this

salad

Definitely recommend ZJ tie rod.

The metal on the Moog TREs is way too thick to just brute the fittings in. I think I tapped two or three threads.

94XjSport94

Aren't the drag links the same part number?