.....the right hand tie rod breaks? What does the vehicle usually do at 50 miles per hour and accelerating?

 

It goes anywhere it feels like going, usually NOT straight. Worse yet try loosing a lower balljoint, Luckly I was just pulling out of a parking lot and not going 70 down the hwy

 

Could it have caused this?
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...k/IMG_0038.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1.../IMG_0044a.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...k/IMG_0045.jpg

 

Sure, but I'd be inclined to bet on that ^^^ causing the broken tie rod...

 

The wreck, like mentioned above, would be more likely to cause a broken tie rod. A break would cause the vehicle to steer real strange but you would have some control. Steering components almost never fail unless damaged by something. The only way to tell if the tie rod broke before the loss of control would be having a traffic accident expert look at the tire marks. Unfortunately even that would not be entirely conclusive. Road debris causes a lot of accidents. Not much you can do about that but be an alert driver.

I see some sort of audio device hanging out the window?? Was someone playing with the tunes instead of attending to driving??? A lot of that goes on also, whether it be the radio, a cellphone, or just reaching for something in a vehicle.

 

WOW hope everybody is OK.

 

That device is my Scan Guage in which the velcro didn't hold very well.

All I can tell ya is I up-shifted from 4-5 at 50mph, just before the bridge, and then I was going diagonally to some guardrail.

 

I just noticed the: "Rolled at 42,2xx Wrecked at 57,xxx " which might explain how a tie rod could break. Before I saw that I was thinking it must have been sabatoged.

 

I'm wishing I would have taken pictures of the tie rod to show you but I didn't. It had a cone shaped brake, smooth with some rough in the center.

Come to think of it, I always had bad driveline "clunk" it was horrid enough to cause the pickup to jerk violently at times. Maybe it was slick enough for me not to feel it that time, but enough to cause a loss of traction on black ice. IDK still can't believe it happened as fast as it did.

 

I believe you had a burr on the section the metal is rolled to hold the ball in. If it was sabotage there would be hacksaw mark or something like a loose linkage. The way tie rods are made they insert them into a groove and the metal rolled to hold it in. Be glad you walked away with your life. All I can say is lift the boot when you grease your truck.

 

Smooth with some rough in the center would probably be a break from pure tension. Probably during the crash. A crack or sabotage would show a progression across the face of the metal and some corrosion discoloration.

Black ice is dangerous, we get it all the time here in KC. I have had no problems with it in 40 years of driving tho. I just take note of existing conditions. I do see people barreling down the road in unpleasant conditions only to see them in the ditch a few miles down the road quite often.

Did the Scan Gauge work well? I am considering putting one in the wife's car.

 

It didn't break near the boot. It was in the middle of the tierod approximatly 1 inch from the threads. I didn't see any grease zerks on it, unless I didn't look hard enough.

 

I was happy with it. Only complaint I have is it doesn't give oil pressure. Everything else is great with it. I would like to upgrade to the newest version though. MPG's are pretty much spot on. Are a little off from different pumps shutting off and shuch. I do wonder if the speed it shows is more accurate than the speedometer. Great unit with many funtions. Only need more cash to upgrade to the newest version.

 

Sorry to hear this happened, but most importantly you are ok. Four things catch my attention here:

*Trace of snow on the ground in pic
*You upshifted 4-5 just before this happened
*You mentioned that you did this just before a bridge
*Can't say for sure from the pics, bit it looks like there was a curve in the road

I'm suspecting you hit ice and the tie rod failure was after the vehicle lost control. The tie rod breaking where you indicated is *interesting*; can you post some very up close pics showing the fracture surfaces on both tie rod sections as well as the overall tie rod and surrounding undercarriage? It's generally not too difficult to look at a fracture on mild steel and determine if it happened over time (fatigue) as opposed to a one time event. On that driveline clunk you noted, Ford replaced (at no charge) many Ranger drivelines to a 4" (IIRC) aluminum unit to address a few issues. You may want to look through TSB's to see if you were covered by this and if curious, run the VIN through OASIS to see if the repair was made.

*You should consider yourself very lucky to walk away from this. That guardrail, which appears to be recently installed, could also have kept on going through the cab of the truck.........

 

I wish I could get you more pics of the tie rod, and undercarriage, but the salvage company already has it, and I don't know which salvage company has it.
It still had the steel drive shaft. I took it in when I still had factory warranty about a clutch issue at 23k and was told nothing was wrong. So nothing was done with it.

I had "planned" to trade it off before I hit 60,000 miles, for a F-150, but as it turned out it didn't quite happen.

Wreck Pics Click Here