Please help guide my track rod end refurbishment. Renovating the track rod ends on my Mark V saloon has raised some questions. The track rod tube has a short pipe section for overall track rod length adjustment near the left hand drive steering assembly. The track rod ends are of the type shown as “later XK120” in the Mark VII and XK120 Service Manual. The rubber bushings for the taper bolts on the track rod ends are worn out and the steering is too loose. I’ve gotten one taper bolt out using a pickle fork, Kroil, waiting, and Thor.
What is the procedure and clearances for the fit to put a new taper bolt into the old track rod end? I got two new taper bolts with bushing surroundings about ten years ago, shall I use them? They are about 0.911" outer diameter on a steel sleeve surrounding what may be the rubber bushing equivalent around the steel taper bolt. It looks like these new taper bolts are a replacement/improvement over the original design which the Mark VII and XK120 Service Manual suggests requires full track rod end replacement rather than bushing replacement.
The replacement at 0.911" outer diameter is about 0.002" bigger than the hole in the track rod end. Is this a press fit, should some machining be done and to what specification, or should I get some newer/other replacement taper bolt and bushing?
My limited understanding of MK vs is that , the tie rods ends were the same taper and thread sizes as MK IV , However the body was a larger diameter meaning that they could be used as a substitue on Mk IVs on the side with only a single track rod. So I would presume that the MK IV ends complete would fit on a MK V . The MKiV ends complete are available from Amsteer in UK , And quite possibly also the normal Mk V items
They are not expensive and the people running the company are the same as worked at Quinton hazel who made them previously.
All one does is put the taper in the holes and tighten the nut , Being in a taper the should hold the male half while you tighten it . Rather like one can tighten a nut with out holding the head if a spring washer is used.
But I would suggest as a first point of call to look at the Amsteer website.
Yes, they are the same as XK120.
They are made a little bit oversize to allow for worn track rod ends.
Probably .002 oversize is too much, you want a light press fit, so turn them down to .0005 oversize.
I did this job back in Dec 2008 and reported my findings on the XK forum.
I don’t know how to capture a link to the discussion, but you can go to the XK forum, then at the upper right corner there is a search icon, search track rod ends and check the box for searching within the XK forum.
Here are links to my pictures: http://www.jag-lovers.org/snaps/snap_view.php3?id=1229103024 http://www.jag-lovers.org/snaps/snap_view.php3?id=1243278165