so a couple months back i bought all new tie rods. i got the Raybestos professional grade tie rods and ends.

when looking around on the internet i saw that there were tie rods for up to 4200lb front gross axle weight and ones for over 4200lb's. well i looked at my door sticker. that says that i have the 8500lb front end. so i got the over 4200lb tie rods. i started the install last night. the left inner and outer tie rods worked fine. BTW i am re-using the old adjusting sleeves. so today while i am at work my dad goes to try and assemble the right inner and outer tie rods into the adjusting sleeve. the tie rods don't fit. so he goes back to car quest with my old sleeve, where i got the stuff from. turns out the sleeve for the right inner/outer rods is the sleeve for the "up to 4200lb" front end. so my dad ordered the correct size tie rods that match the sleeves.

so my point is, it appears that somebody has bought the wrong parts before. now when i buy the correct parts it seems like they are wrong.

Finally the questions:

am i reading the door sticker right?
did i buy the correct tie rods the first time?
what will happen if i run these smaller tie rods?


sorry for the loaded post lol
thanks in advance.

 

Compare the right and left old sleeves, are they the same size? I think they should be, but I could be wrong. If it wasn't so late, I'd go out and take a look at the 2wd setup I pulled off my truck and see what the two sides look like.

It may be possible that a previous owner swapped the wrong parts on if they could be fit together.

 

well turns out i was reading the door sticker wrong. the tie rods that were on the truck were the right ones.

so all the tie rods are now in the truck. taking it for an alignment tomorrow morn.

 

i was thinking you read it wrong. 8500GVW, 4000FAGW, and whatever 5000RAGW
(front axle gross weight, and rear). note that my numbers are a guess, but you see whats up

 

yep, that's what happened.

 

My 1 ton dually has the over 4200 pound, also called the ambulance package. Replaced my drag link a couple of weeks ago.

 

Yep, the drag links are larger on your's, but the ball joints are the same as the F250's.

 

You probably have a about 3k rating on the front. Door jamb sticker helps. Should have individual ratings for front and back axles.


Usually the total axle ratings on these trucks are more than the gvwr. My 91 has 4600lb front axle (dana 50 ) and 6000 rear axle rating or so. Thats 10600 lbs total. But your limited to the total rating of 8600lbs.