Finally got my 85 running well enough to drive it home from my dad's shop (35 miles away), now I can get a lot more tinkering done. First up: steering.

One of the tie rods is badly bent, the steering wheel is way off center and the steering is pretty jacked up so I'm going to start by replacing both tie rods and all 4 tie rod ends, plus putting new bushings in the idler arm.

Does anybody have a good starting length measurement for setting the tie rods? I can adjust the toe myself and don't want to pay for an alignment until I've got all my front suspension rebuilt, just looking to see if there's a good starting point to save some time since I'm pulling both tie rods out and starting fresh. I don't trust the adjustment on the one good tie rod considering how far off center the steering wheel is, probably 30 degrees. I didn't see anything in the factory service manual or the Haynes manual about what the length of the tie rod should be, only the factory toe-in settings of 0 to 6mm.

Once that's done I'll get the steering box adjusted. I know I'm not going to get the same feel as a modern rack but I also know it's gotta be better than it is.

 

just take a measurement of the tie rods end to end before disassembly. then set the new ones to that and that should be good enough to get it to an alignment shop.

 

somewhere in the FSM there is a measurement

 

I'm local to you.. we can measure mine. I've had my suspension off a few times and still haven't gotten around to getting an alignment or stringing it up myself but it drives straight. I haven't touched the tie rods yet.

 

The magic number for my car ended up being 54mm from TRE to TRE, that set the toe exactly at 0.