Tie Rod Ends Repeatedly Failing

STPL · Nov 8, 2018

1994 2WD 2.3l Supercab. I replaced all inner and outer tierod ends with MOOG parts less than a year ago and now I can move the right inner/outer tie rods by hand and I get a lot of clunking driving over sharp bumps. This is the second time in two years I've had to replace the tierod ends, the first time was with parts of lesser quality so I thought MOOG parts would have me all set this time around. Is there any thing that might lead to tierod ends wearing out quicker than normal? I don't think that normal highway and backroad driving should cause these parts to fail so quickly.

AzLizard · Nov 8, 2018

I have had issues with Moog quality.
Had a mechanic tell me O'Reilly's top in-house brand is as good if not better than Moog after moving production out of the country.

adsm08 · Nov 8, 2018

Did you grease them enough?

STPL · Nov 8, 2018

AzLizard said:
I have had issues with Moog quality.
Had a mechanic tell me O'Reilly's top in-house brand is as good if not better than Moog after moving production out of the country.

Hmm... Maybe ill try another "premium" brand then and see how they hold up compared to MOOG.

STPL · Nov 8, 2018

adsm08 said:
Did you grease them enough?

Yep. Everything is greased and good to go. After it started making noise I pumped some more grease into it and it helped for a day or two and now I get the same clunking noises.

Dirtman · Nov 8, 2018

Dumb question but did you get an alignment after replacing them?

donaldcon · Nov 8, 2018

Moog sucks now a days.

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STPL · Nov 9, 2018

Dirtman said:
Dumb question but did you get an alignment after replacing them?

Yup! Could a bad alignment lead to tie rod ends wearing out faster than normal?

STPL · Nov 9, 2018

donaldcon said:
Moog sucks now a days.

Sent from my LM-X410(FG) using Tapatalk

Any brand recommendations other than MOOG?

4x4junkie · Nov 23, 2018

I think Ford's own Motorcraft brand seems like the best prospect for our trucks currently. A friend recently redid the steering on his '93, and the Motorcraft TREs he bought still appeared to be about the quality I would expect for OEM. I didn't ask what he paid for them, though I've seen Motorcraft stuff on Rockauto.com for prices not too real different from what Moog, Raybestos and others were going for.

But yeah, here too... No love for Moog (and hasn't been for some time now). I couldn't get more than 5K out of a set of their ball joints back around '04-'06. I finally switched to Raybestos Pro-Grade, which have remained in place since '07.
Unfortunately Federal Mogul (Moog's parent company) decided to buy out Raybestos' chassis division and seemingly has disposed of them since they're not available anymore (a pretty sleazy way to one-up your competition :annoyed:

), so other than Motorcraft, I've no idea what is good now.

Macneil87 · Nov 23, 2018

We use mevotech TTX stuff on some of our f250/350 fleet trucks at work. So far they’ve been holding up. The TTX line is their high end stuff. We couldn’t keep front ends in the super duties with Moog stuff. Unsure if they make front end components for the rangers or not yet but it’s worth looking into.

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4x4junkie · Nov 23, 2018

Mevotech is a name I have seen pop up fairly recently, but wasn't sure if not just another brand coming from overseas... I definitely will have to look into those some more. I think I recall seeing on Rockauto at least some of them for our trucks having the blue boots like Raybestos had (which was Spicer before it was Raybestos). So maybe that's them now,

I hope...

Really appreciate that report!

Macneil87 · Nov 24, 2018

I am not too sure how good the regular run of the mill mevotech stuff is as I haven’t used it. Like I said, we use the TTX and so far no problems. Really nice to work with, product looks superior as compared to MOOG and it comes with a better boot design in most situations than what else is on the market.

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Macneil87 · Nov 24, 2018

Here’s an outer for my generation ranger (98). It’s their TTX line.

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/ford,1998,ranger,4.0l+v6,1304525,steering,tie+rod+end,7428

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4x4junkie · Nov 24, 2018

Hmmm...
Looks like us '97&down owners may be out of luck on Mevotech for the moment... :sad:

Looks like two characteristics of the TTX line are a green (urethane I assume) boot and a bright colored stud, which I'm not finding anything of the sort (all I see are ones with blue or black boots and dark-colored studs ranging around $15-20, so probably same as the old Spicer or Raybestos "Service Grade" junk).

So I guess it's gonna have to remain Motorcraft for now.

I appreciate the info though. Hopefully they'll get something out for us in the future.

Tie Rod Ends Repeatedly Failing

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