We all look for ways to make our Jeep's better, stronger and more reliable on the trail. Each time a part fails when we are miles into the boonies and our favorite part stores are distant memories, we rack our brains to think of ways to keep it from happening again. This is just such a tale of woe and the easy and cheap solution I found:

During a trip out to the Rubicon I decided to try the Little Sluice. At that time the Wrangler had 35" tires, 4" of suspension lift and 4:10 gears & a rear locker. I thought I was prepared, but the dismal 38:1 crawl ratio quickly made the ride through the sluice seem like a series of poorly controlled crashes. I beamed with pride at the end as I thought I had made it out without any serious damage. I was wrong.

Among other undercarraige bits that were well pounded on the Sierra granite I had managed to whack my draglink. This is the steel tube that connects the pitman arm on the steering box to the steering tierod. I did not notice it much at first, but some time later just before hitting the trail that runs down to Buck Island Lake I had to make an extremely sharp left and then right turn through a tight rock obstacle.

I turned the wheel all the way to the left just fine, but as I turned it all the way back to the right something funny was happening.

Even though I turned the steering wheel to the far right my tires seemed to stay cocked all the way over to the far left. I had pretzeled my normally straight tie rod into a neat L-shape. The slight bend it had received in the Little Sluice had weakened it enough to allow it to bend under stress.

Luckily I had an underhood welding system. In over a year since had been installed I had never had a chance to use it in the field - but now it was to prove itself invaluable as we straightened the rod out (sort of) with hammers, bashing against boulders and plenty of manly grunts.

We then welded a scavenged piece of angle iron to it for reinforcement (this fix performed well for over a month).

This is the field fixed draglink installed in the Jeep

The aftermath of this incident left me wondering how to keep this from happening again. After all, no steering makes trail work much tougher. Chrome Moly Tie Rods are available, but they are expensive and while stronger than mild grades of cold rolled steel CrMo is more brittle and tougher to weld or repair in the field.

It did not take much in the way of genius to figure out that filling up the drag link's hollow tube would make it much stronger and more resistant to bending. I made some measurements and found that the internal diameter of the tube was exactly 5/8".

A trip to the local hardware store (OSH) netted me a short length of 5/8" OD cold rolled & hardened steel rod for about $8. I cut this to length (allowing some space for the tie rod end adjustment) and painted it to inhibit rusting. I then removed one tie rod end and drove the rod into the drag link tube. The fit was so tight that most of the paint came back off as the rod slipped into the tube.

So - for a measly $8 and about 20 minutes of work I managed to make the drag link probably 3 or 4 times stronger than it was before without any chance of weakening it by welding something to the outside.

The only worry now is that some other component of the steering system may be the "weak link", but gradually all of the links will be better and stronger and more able to survive the rigors of the toughest trails (saving those long walks). After all - if I wanted to hike the Rubicon trail, I would not have brought a Jeep!