I'm at 74,000 miles with the stock inner and outer tie rods with sleeves and the brace kit and running a straight center link. I don't see the reason of spending the money on the high dollar tie rods when you can buy the stock one anywere anytime and reinstall your sleeves and your good to go again.
the only thing i hate about the straight centerlink is the tire scrub you get turing, the increase in bumpsteer and reduced turing radius. It definitely does work to keep your steering together and last but at the price of worn tires and a little worse handling for the normal every day driver
I have 151,000 miles on all my factory original tie rods and ball joints.
The only things that have been replaced in my front end is the pitman arm, the idler arm, and of course wheel bearings.
BUT. When the time does come to do tie rods, im going with the Exaxt setup because I want something truly bulletproof, and I dont want to lose turning radius.
This kit is the only thing i could make to get my steering to last.
Heres a bit of a run down of what ive tried to get things to last:
1st. stock centerlink with fabtech tie rods, idler/pitman arm would wear out every 5k.
2nd. same as above but with cognito braces. idler/pitman arm wore out every 10k and i bent a fabtech tie rod under WOT up a cinder hill in 4hi
3rd. factory centerlink with braces and factory new GM tie rods with sleeves. broke the ball off the outer tie rod rock crawlin up a trail in sedona. still wearing out idler/pitman arm every 10k.
4th. SD straight centerlink without braces and bent back old fabtech tie rods. centerlink stayed on for 1k and i took it off and sold it. made the truck handle like crap off road and was quickly killin the outer edges of my tires.
5th. EXAXT kit with Moog problem solver outer tie rods and the NCP inner tie rods from napa. new idler/pitman arm from napa (NCP part as well). Im still on the original idler/pitman arm and have replaced both inner tie rods (both were faulty parts from the MFG come to find out) and 1 outer tie rod from trying to do a full boost 4wd launch with the t-bars cranked and blown out shocks, surprisingly all it did was crack the inner race that the ball rides on. Im at 45k with this kit and still goin (well when the new motor comes).
I use to run the truck hard in 4wd and my lift did not help this. when my lift as at 8" i had horrible CV angles and steering angles. it was a large contributor to my wear problems. plus the fact i would constantly use 4wd out playing in the cinders up steep hills at WOT, do boosted 4wd launches without touching the t-bars, go rock crawlin out in sedona, and 4wd drifts when it snowed. it was only about 25k ago i lowered the truck 1.5"s and leveled all the steering and cv angles out but i also stopped beatin on the truck as i had my samurai to do it in then.
I know some of this stuff may seem far fetched (specially since ive never broke a CV
, you would think with the way my angles were i should have) and i dont have a way to prove what its been through but i know ill put an exaxt kit on any truck i get that is '10 or older, even if its completely stock. Hope this helps someone
