I plan on making some new steering rods for the oddy's.
The question is do I make them out of larger material or stay the same ??
The reason I ask is because I know some of you beef up your stock steering rods so that they don't bend as easily but won't that put more shock loads on the ball joint and hiem joint ?? I was wondering if Honda did this on purpose so the rods would bend instead of shock loading the ends.

Can Ody, I made a few sets from larger diameter solid rod so that they wont bend as fast. Im a fat ass so i needed something heavier that wont give and so far so good....Randy

When you crash, something has to give. If it's not the tie rods, the suspension tabs and upright will see more stress, as well as the ball joints. If something is going to fail, it's usually easier if it's a cheaper/easier part to replace. For that reason, we put fuses in the tie rods of our SAE buggies to allow them to fail first. The fuse was essentially a section of the tie rod that had a smaller diameter. The rationale was that we would rather replace a tie rod than deal with sheared suspension tabs or even have to remake time-consuming uprights. You might want to consider keeping them the same diameter.

Since our uprights were made of aluminum, the section that was prone to fail was the arm connecting to the tie rod. With the stock uprights being steel, that's not as likely to fail, so the tabs, ball joints would be more of a concern.

Took a piece of steel pipe same ID as the OD of the tie rod, drilled holes every 3-4" on either side, spot welded the holes and the ends around, cleaned up and painted.





JCC makes a good point though and the way i drive, maybe i should have left mine alone?

Oh well, that's what hammers are for.

Well that's a one and one vote.
As for the fuse in the tie rod idea, well I don't know. I would rather have bent steering for the ride home than a busted steering rod 40 miles back in the mountains. That's a long walk. I already had to walk out over 20km one time. You guys put fuses in the steering rod so that you don't shear the mounting points for the suspension but I always wondered why race car teams never made shear plates ?? The entire suspension is mounted on a shear plate and then you just remove three or four bolts and you have an entire new front or rear corner. If I ever build a buggy from scratch or build another race car that's what I am going to do for the suspension.
Still don't know what to do on the rods.

That makes sense. It helped our situation that other vehicles were available to tow. Usually the culprit are trees, and one particular time a less experienced rider drove between two trees that didn't have enough room. In that situation, the tie rods and uprights didn't break, but most of the front suspension tabs sheared off. My guess as why race teams don't bother with shear plates is the extra weight/complexity, and the fact that they don't really consider longevity when building vehicles to race.

On the buggies I have been involved with we used the tie rod as a fuse point. Only problem was we didnt make an extra one to have as a spare!

Well it looks like the two engineers are both using the steering rods as fuses.
So I think I will follow their lead. I may just go up a very small amount. The stock oddy rods are 12mm or almost 1/2" so I will go 9/16" rod if I can get it at the machine shop. Thanks for the input.

Keep in mind that the stock tie rods were about as strong as a piece of spaghetti. I have bent two of them when in my opinion they shouldn't have bent. I would beef them up slightly but not go with the overkill.

Rand

Agreed. I crashed once because of rod failure without hitting an object. Yes, with 30 year old parts many factors play a role but I do believe we are likely driving them harder too.
Strengthen them up a bit, if you hit something all hell is going to break loose anyway.

I'll be putting a set of these on my new ody.

The only thing that bugs me about using these is that you have to drill out the steering flag & knuckles for the larger Heim joints.

Rand

Once the tie rod bends and it straightened up to the best of mosts ability, They are now weak and will bend more easily. We ride mostly sand and I would always bend a factory tie rod after it had been straightened. We went with a larger diameter and never had a bent rod again. If we could have replaced with stock rod it probably would have been hard to bend too. Since we don't have many trees or shit jumping out in front of us, we found the heavy duty rods did just fine.

[quote="Randman"]I'll be putting a set of these on my new ody.



Rand, is there something you're not sharing? Your new Oddy? You still have your buggy?

Well.....

Yes, I still have the sand rail.

I will be purchasing the soon to be Ex Wife's ( WOO HOO! ) Ody from her so it's not actually new to me but..... it soon will be solely my possession and I will start making modifications to it accordingly!

Regards.....

The happiest man in the world.....Rand!

I repaired my pilot tie rods with some 3/4" stainless tubing, I too ride exclusively in the sand and can avoid trees and boulders
agree, once bent, they will bend if you look at them crooked. since doing this I've done things that would have bent stock units and did not damage the spindles or rod ends.