Tie Rod Socket and Bellcrank

Hello Everyone,

I am not so sure what is good enough to get by with or what I should replace.

These three tie rod sockets and the bellcrank I think should be replaced.





This tie rod socket looks to be okay.






Brake shoes. Replace or hold off for awhile?





Thank you for any advice.

Lee

 

normally the simplest thing to do is to have a jr jeeper turning the wheel side to side, as you look for connections that have wear. but with it apart you can just take a ball jount and any form of slop is undesired. the bellcrank has a set of needle bearings that are notoriously subject to wear but the bellcrank is normally salvagable with a common kit. if plowing snow and fields, you can get by with a lot of wear but once on the road wear is the enemy

 

I would like it to be road worthy. Would I punch out the old needle bearings and then replace them with a new set? When I checked the bearings it looked like there was two rows and one of the rows appeared to be missing several bearings.

 

My 2 cents would be to put a bearing kit in the bellcrank and replace the tie rod ends if they are not known to be good. If the brake shoes are not soaked with brake fluid or grease and they are not down to the rivets or nearly worn through I would not be afraid to run them.
One thing to keep in mind with the original 9 inch brakes is that performance wise they are marginal but sufficient for a stock rig with stock tire sizes, They will stop with larger than stock tires but it requires some thinking ahead by the driver. 9 inch brakes must be in nearly perfect working order to get the most out of them, One of the biggest performance issues with the 9's is unfortunately an expensive one initially........overturned drums.
If you install new brake shoes the lining should make nearly full friction contact with the drum for its entire length, Its my opinion that at least 3/4 of the new shoe lining length should show initial friction contact after a test drive. If not I would recommend replacing the drums.

 

you can buy a complete set of new tie rod ends on ebay for around $40.00, thats all four of them. i recently bought a set of M38A1 ends.

 

Thanks for all the helpful advice. The drag link and steering box are my next step in servicing the steering.