Steering Bars & Ends
Copied and pasted from LR4x4.
Basically I need to find, manufacture or adapt some sort of permanent solution to the track rod end issue - namely the fact that Volvo C303 RHD TRE's literally don't exist anymore and are a very weird design to start with.
The TRE thing is the biggest PITFA as the truck WILL be used on-road and MOT'd I can't be bodging stuff up or have less than at least as good as factory. You can buy reproduction LHD ones but the double-joint bit means it's a non-starter, and they're ~£250 a pair from Sweden anyway!
I spent insane amounts of time badgering all sorts of people in the steering business to no avail, via a friend in a related industry I managed to get all the way to Lemforder's design department in Germany and even they are totally unable tell you the taper of anything they make 
, they can't look up other parts which might fit (they tried and the suggested part was so wrong it was comical).
I badgered numerous helpful parts places from motor factors to Volvo Trucks & Scania main dealers to see if they could turn up anything even close to fitting… nothing! (But Scania have some proper lovely heavy stuff if you're making linkages…
)
So, have to try to engineer something then…
A lot of suggested solutions involved compromises I'm not willing to make;
- HEIM joints / rod-ends are basically out as they wear insanely quickly in UK mud & on-road.
- Reaming out the knuckle is out as there's no way back from that
- Machining an adapter to take a LR TRE - I tried but there's not enough material
- Rooting though old TRE's from the era is a dead end, I don't want something I can't buy another one of next year.
Eventually after boring TSD half to death on the subject, and much discussion with Dirtydiesel1) about what can & can't be safely done with steering links a plan was formed…
Step 1: EMF Rod Ends, DD assures me, make heims that actually survive UK conditions and are adjustable & rebuildable. Dan is one of about 5 people on this planet I would actually trust to recommend something like this. EDIT from future me: they have not worked as well as I'd hoped and do wear when exposed to mud. They are beautifully made though.
Step 2: DD has the technology to crank an uber-beefy steering bar which (hopefully) gets over the cranked shape of the Volvo ones
Step 3: There's enough room to get some adapters machined to mount a heim to the taper using a standard HT M12 bolt straight down the middle with no modification of the casting and, I very much hope, being at least as strong if not loads stronger than anything LR fitted.
So, I braced my wallet for impact and ordered some very expensive heims from Canada. After a fair old wait for them to get round to machining them, and then the postal service to deliver them, they are indeed very nicely machined and look like good bits of kit. I've certainly no worries about them breaking. As for UK mud, only time will tell.
After the heims arrived I took a bucket of assorted bits to an old chap in a shed full of machines and, after a bit of farting about to get the taper bang-on, I picked up some bits very nicely machined from EN36 this very morning…
Volvo on the left, my solution on the right.
Now I need some quality M12 bolts and to badger DD about some steering bars…
Some 38mm EN24t solid bar arrived and Dan proceeded to snap his tube bender on it… yeah, that'll be strong enough then!
Here's a genuine Land Rover hollow track rod next to Dan's creations:
Onwards to Cooling…
