has anyone fliped their tierods on a dana30 frontend? is as simple as bringing the knuckles to amachine shop and putting the taper on the top of the knuckle? anything hidden
any help would be great.

I do not believe this is possible. If you have the taper so the TRE goes in from below, and then try and retaper it with the same size taper, you'll effectively end up with a hole that's too big. Make any sense? If not, I'll try and explain it better. Now if you reemed it out with a larger taper for a larger TRE, you might be able to get away with it.

Here is a link to a store here in town that makes a kit to do just that. I put them on my CJ-7 about a year ago. [irl]http://www.jksmfg.com/Formula_1_Steering.htm[/irl] You drill out the taper and put in the new ball joints and flip everything to the top side.

Your profile is not filled out so we do not know which model of jeep you are talking about. You can flip them on a CJ7. I am not sure about any of the YJs or TJs. I sent the knuckles off the Currie Enterprises and had it done and it worked out well. They weld in the old holes and redrill them with the taper the opposite direction. With my 3" lift, it had both the tierod and drag link just about parallel, which is where you want them to be to reduce bump steer. Nothing hidden that I can think of other than it may cause you to get slightly creative with the mounting of your steering stabilizer.

Here's the easiest way... dril the taper out, then insert these tapered spacers.


$30 from
<a target="_blank" href=http://www.ok4wd.com/default.asp?mode=productimage&amp;prod=80&amp;part =R04781543&amp;id=140&amp;level=1&amp;vend=&amp;ol dmode=catalog>http://www.ok4wd.com/default.asp?mode=productimage&amp;prod=80&amp;part =R04781543&amp;id=140&amp;level=1&amp;vend=&amp;ol dmode=catalog</a>

I flipped the tie rod on my 86 CJ-7 and upgraded the tie rod at the same time. I just drilled it our by hand with a 3/4" bit and install a 1 1/2" DOM tie rod with heim joints. I used a 3/4" bolt to hold it all together. Put a little red lock tite on the threads and your all set with a heavy duty tie rod and better clearence.

No offense but, I have seen two rigs with the tapers drilled out and sleeves added that pulled apart every time they hit anything.
The best way is to ream the steel you have. Doing it this way will make you have to use larger rod ends with larger pins, but it leaves more metal around the rod end, which makes the eye stronger.
Adding a sleeve, in my opinion, would remove too much metal to accommodate the sleeve, which would make the rod end hole in the knuckle much easier to break.
Here's a link to a writup I did a whil back on this exact subject.
My Custom Steering

RockRash, That is exactly what I was thinking of doing. I just didn't want to experiment on my DD. How long ago did you do this and how has it lasted? How hard do you wheel it, and if you remember about what was the cost? TIA

I have been thinking of doing this on mine, but it looks like the linkage will hit the frame with the spring at full compression. Has anyone done this on a stock or small lift ? I have about 3" of lift with the original bump stops and it looks like it will not work. I am also a bit shy of using heim joints, they look like they would wear out or start to bind after a while.

I originally did mine with a new Skyjacker 4" lift, which nets approximately 3.5" of lift in the front. I too have the stock bump stops and neither the frame nor the bump stops interfere at all. With full spring compression on one side I still have 2" of rod clearance to the frame. You would probably be cutting it very close with a 2” lift and with stock springs it may not work at all.