Aloha all,

Working on the 2001 NM Vehicross, and to make a long story short, 200K mile truck with a lot of deferred maintenance. So the left front axle was probably almost shot, and the needle bearing that supports the axle inside the spindle (or knuckle - whatever you prefer to call it) was nonexistent. Just worn out to nothing. Literally. It wasn't present. Axle was just bouncing around... (didn't sound good, either)

So we sourced a new spindle for both sides from a 2001 103K mile wrecked Trooper, (God bless high desert and the Albuquerque Pick Your Part for some REALLY clean rust free parts) and put in new cv shafts, needle bearings, thrust washers, upper and lower ball joints, tie rod ends, and repacked wheel bearings. Also replaced the center link with the one from the Trooper (they seem to be IDENTICAL as near as I can tell, both in part numbers, checking online source, and measuring lengths, but tell me if I am wrong!
For that matter, it seems the spindles are supposed to be identical as well, as near as I have been able to determine). The alignment seemed proper PRIOR to doing all this work, but with the steering wheel straight the driver wheel looks correct but the passenger wheel is WAY kicked out now. We've pulled the adjustment in until its bottomed out, and it still isn't right. (Yes, I will be doing a formal alignment, but I'm trying to get it CLOSE...)

So I'm trying to figure out where I've gone wrong...

Spindles have a different geometry from Troopers versus VX's? What about Rodeos?
Tie rod ends?
The tie rod center adjusting bars?

I see a only a few options...
- I've got the wrong parts and need to change something out (but what?)
- Shorten the tie rod intermediate bars (cut off a quarter or half inch from the ends to bring them into the adjustment range)
- Take the slack up on the drivers side, but recognize that that will change steering wheel position as well

Any thoughts from the gurus?

Mahalo,

Jonathan