I have a 1966 S Type and am doing a wheel alignment on it, particularly toe. I have replaced the one piece outer tie rods with the alternative with a threaded bar and two conventional tie rod ends, what is the length those tie rods should be? I changed them out 20 years ago, so I have no idea how long the original style one piece rods were.

I ask about the length, because I have adjusted them to be equal length on the left and right side and am setting the toe with the centre track rod length, but the steering wheel is now about 90 degrees out. I'm guessing the tie rod length is critical for steering wheel centring?

 

Hopefully someone can give you tie rod length, I'll check my publications but you are correct to set toe with the centre rod on all but Varamatic models where being variable ratio the centre rod is fixed & you set toe on the tie rods.

Original tie rods were fixed length in that if you turned the rod it merely turned out of one ball joint and into the other without changing length. This to facilitate ball joint replacement.

 

It's been a long time since I saw them, but my recollection on my original tie rods is that they were a one piece forging with ball pins set in each end. If a ball or gaiter went bad, the entire piece needed to be replaced. That's what the service manual indicated anyway, it said the tie rods were non-servicable.

 

Yes. It varied by year & steering box (it's in a Jaguar Service Bulletin somewhere). My car came with the replaceable ball joints on the tie rods but fixed length. I have looked through all my publications. No tie rod lengths stated. Hopefully someone can measure a fixed ball joint non serviceable tie rod for you.

My car.

 

That's the type of rod I have now, but not what it was built with. I have the car back together with a reasonable wheel alignment now, only problem is the steering wheel is vertical when driving straight ahead. A combination of adjusting the tie rod and centre rod should get that back to a horizontal and a reasonable alignment.

 

Note. The tie rods you are looking at on my car are not length adjustable ~ the rods just screw from one joint to the other without changing length due to threading. i.e serviceable. (Mine is an SA CKD built car and most if not all of the 850 units came similarly equipped)

These are the fixed rods that came on some cars. Non serviceable.

Just remove the steering wheel & re-centre it on it's spline.

 

I'm not sure if it is still relevant but I happen to have the originals from my '66 Mk2 laying on the basement floor. They are non-serviceable and non-adjustable. It looks like they are about 13-1/8 inches from ball center to ball center.
I hope this helps.

 

Thanks! That's quite close to what I had, I think mine were set to 13-1/4"