I'm working on a 39 chevy and besides the other half ass crap they did I notice they ditch the tie rod ends and did heim joints for the steering what guys thing is that safe?
It can be safe,if the right size ,mounted the right way and they are not cheep-o joints. That being said the factory replacement joints are engineered for car an always look better an safer. A photo of your set up helps most know what you have.
Last fall, my '36 Ford truck took a hard, front hit on the right front wheel. It was enough to mangle the flat plate steering arm and twist and bend the sector shaft of a Vega steering box. The heim joints and drag link were fine. 5/8" chrome moly heims. Gary
My heap has heims too. Have to make sure they do not bind at full suspension travel, in both directions, and at full turn.
The issue with Heim joints in steering outside of poorly made cheap ones has been improper installation. Some guys seem to see them as a way to circumnavigate proper steering linkage design. The other thing is that they seem to wear faster than tie rod ends for the most part.
My 2 current hot rods have heim steering. Over the years, more than a dozen of my high horse powered circle track cars had heim steering and 4 bar heims and heims on the A arms and more. I never had a broken one. Even due to crashes. We bent 'em but never broke 'em. And believe me we tested them. It is a good idea to put a big washer on the out side of the joint to prevent it from leaving the premises in case the center would happen to pull out though. At least on the steering. Just in case. In fact, I have my '26 on the lift right now doing maintenance on all the links. I just counted the heims on it. 22. Car has 20K miles on it. All heims were in good shape. You have to make sure you have good quality heims.
When Earl’s Supply was family owned and operated in LA I bought aircraft grade 5/8” heims lined with Teflon there . Or maybe it is not Teflon because it never extruded out, and they are still as tight as ever. I have them on the drag link and tie rod and I used stripper bolts with them. Machinists and tool & die guys will know what those are. On each bolt I first used a hardened 1/8” thick washer, a 1/2” long piece of 5/8” ID 4130 tube, the heim, another piece of tubing and then into the eye (drilled to 5/8”) on the stock steering arms. The thin wall tubing is to allow full travel of the heim joint. The pieces of tubing were adjusted to length so the total stack up put the end of the 5/8” shank flush with the eye of the steering arm and/or pitman. Add a 1/2-13 ny-loc and it is tight and has absolutely no play.
Besides all of that they make dirt seals that will go on either side of the ball to keep dirt out.. Makes them last a LONG time.
Do not know if it is still in the rule book but NHRA in the 60s required a flat washer big enough to keep the joint from comeing apart on steering heims
My 30 pickup has Heim joints for mounting the hairpins, and on the steering linkage. I upgraded the ends that were on the car when I acquired it. The new ends are chrome moly steel, the centers are bearing steel. They're rated at something like 30,000# yield strength, that's bending, not breaking. I feel pretty comfortable with them. Here's a comparison of the old to the new: I mounted each one with a grade 8 flat washer, like so: It's not like ball joints don't fail. I've had them come apart, luckily I was driving very slowly at the time, if that had happened at speed it would've been bad. At least with the Heims they are visible, you can see if they are wearing, getting loose. With ball joints that's not so easy. But ball joints are greaseable, Heim's aren't, so for cars getting a lot of mileage per year they are better. But for a hot rod that see's maybe a couple thousand miles per year, Heims will last a long time. IMO of course, your's may differ.
They’re in the Speedway racing catalog. There are a lot of neat things in that catalog that aren’t in the regular edition.
Yes, they are available, but absolutely do not use heims with grease fittings in steering gear! That hole for the zerk weakens the joint considerably. I would check the strength rating for any joint with a zerk in it.
I run high grade Chrome moly helms on my tie rod with no problem but tie rods have no Extreme angularity issues .With the drag link from the steering box to the spindle there can be very extreme angle problems. My car is a Gasser st it has 6” of lift /extension under hard off the line acceleration . This can and will break all but the very best parts . Here I always run rod ends either NOS GM or Moog Made in USA but Quality chrome moly rod ends with tapered high angularity spacers will be safe even in a hard running Gasser. Also there is a rumor that even MOOG has sold out to China but I hope that’s not true. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
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