Broken lower track bar bolt

[Dwhampton]

I have a 75 with a 2.5 SL that im trying to get back on the road after 23 years of being a deer camp and mud truck. Im going with the factory setup. i have a new adjustable drag link, new tie rods and soon to order an adjustable track bar. Once i pulled off the track bar that was on it, i noticed that the PO had some issues with the lower track bar mounting bolt. it seems that the weld on the bolt had broken off so he cut the bolt out and used a new grade 8 bolt with a nyloc nut going through the bracket backwards. this doesnt seem safe to me and it will not hit the road before its fixed. the track bar is about 3/4" low on the axle end to being parallel with the drag link, and if i weld on a WH or Duff track bar riser bracket will the track bar rise too much and create bad steering? Any other suggestions.

thanks

 

[DirtDonk]

Which tie-rod setup did you buy? If it's one of the double-adjustable ones, make sure first that your centerlink is oriented so that the lower end of the draglink is pointed at about a 65 degree up-angle. In other words, the zerk fitting is pointed up somewhere between the bumper and radiator.
This adjustment can greatly effect the angle of the draglink and how it relates to the trackbar. So it's best to get everything dialed before any finish welding.
As always...

If yours is stock replacement stuff, you won't have this adjustment to worry about and can ignore that part.

When you say "factory setup" do you mean you're going back to stock height suspension?
What about existing dropped pitman arms or trackbar brackets? Just stock stuff on there now? Just wondering why the angles are off right now.
Got pics?

Too bad the PO went to such an extreme instead of just re-welding the original bolt. Maybe they had no choice from the old bolt actually breaking, but that's pretty rare. Many of us experience the welds cracking (basically a big tack weld) and it's not that bad a project to re-weld it.

Good luck. If we can see some pics of the front layout we might be able to see something else to help. At the moment, a riser seems overkill and might cause some trouble. But it's not completely ruled out either, if it turns out to be just the right height for your individual setup.

Paul

 

[Dwhampton]

Factory setup as in linkage components. I added the lift once I purchased the vehicle and it will stay. I don't have the double adjustable tie rods. Stock track bar bracket on the frame and stock pitman arm. I will get some pictures once I'm back home and will get them posted. I was reading a post from 2013 and viperwolf said to cut the front of the bracket off and weld in a new bolt and weld the bracket back together. The owner in question on that post did just that and said it worked, just didn't know if there was another option before I cut into it.

 

[DirtDonk]

Ok, with the stock tie rod I'm not sure why your setup would not be pretty close to parallel when all said and done.
Maybe the trackbar mounts had been modified in some way? Or maybe the new draglink has a slight kink in it that's skewing your measurements. If so, just use an imaginary straight line between the two pivoting points to see how close you are.
Or, as one new member mentioned a week or three ago, just measure up from the ground to each rod end or pivoting eye to see just how far off they are.

Maybe that's what you did already. If you're definitely off, then you may have to make your own upper or lower bracket to get the trackbar back into synch with the draglink.
If you need measurements on one of our risers just to see where the bolt holes would put you, I'd be happy to get those for you next week.
But generally speaking, as you were thinking a riser would not normally be needed for this setup. Likely to put you even more out of parallel and maybe even give you clearance issues with your more moderate lift.
Hopefully you don't need to go there.

Paul