C3 manual steering relay rod ball stud

[Shannon Burgess]

Whew, what a mouthful. I'm in the process of tearing apart the front suspension of my '69 for a rebuild. I noticed that the front end kit I bought doesn't contain the ball stud for the relay rod that attaches to the pitman arm. Logically, I can't see why this part would wear, but looking at the boots they are cracked and in poor shape. Is there a method or measurement I can use to see if the stud has too much wear? Are the rubber boots available from a vendor without having to purchase the entire ball stud kit?

Obviously I haven't gotten the relay rod removed from the car yet, so some of this may be obvious once I get it off and on the bench.

Thanks,
Shannon

[John M.]

Re: C3 manual steering relay rod ball stud

Shannon, I just went through this myself. In my case the ball was out of round and needed to be replaced. The assembly was way too tight. If it's round and smooth it's probably ok. The big threaded rod in the end of the assembly should be tightened all the way in and then backed off 3/4 of a turn. Paragon and probably others have just the stud or the whole kit.

[John D.]

Re: C3 manual steering relay rod ball stud

I am doing the same on my 68. If you are replacing the tie rod ends, have you figured out an easy way to replace the tie rod ends and get the overall rod lenghts real close?

[Shannon Burgess]

Re: C3 manual steering relay rod ball stud

John, I'm just carefully labeling the ends of the tie rod sleeves, and counting the number of turns required to remove each tie rod end. Then when I install the new tie rod ends I plan to turn each one the same about as I recorded when I removed the old ones.

Shannon