Tie Rod armor

[BigSwede]

If you do any substantial wheeling, you will eventually find out that the first thing to break on a Trooper is the tie rods. Most serious wheelers carry spare tie rods, OR you can install tie rod "armor": DOR Tie Rod Shieldz

www.darlington-off-road.bigstep.com/item.jhtml?UCIDs=534357|1124674&PRID=1350349

These Shieldz are basically a strait jacket for the tie rod, and will in theory allow a small amount of flex in the tie rod without allowing it to flex to failure (you don't want them to be perfectly rigid, as that just passes the strain on down the steering linkage).

I have used these on my Trooper for two trips to the 4WD Mecca, Moab Utah. My tie rods haven't broken yet! Would they have broken without the Shieldz? I dunno...

At any rate, I highly recommend you carry a spare tie rod assembly or get the DOR Shieldz (or both!) if you wheel. The advantage of the Shieldz is presumably you can avoid failure and you won't have to spend time under your rig doing field repairs.

[BuckHunt]

Aww I wish i had a link to the video of an H2 Busting its tie rod(s) on a moderately small rock on a trail. $50,000 + and you still have to deal with the weakest link. Anyways, that vid will make you want a pair of Joes Shieldz

[IsuzuRS]

Hey...I saw that video. It made my girlfriend see why I don't think of H2s as the best "out of the box" 4x4. She now respects my trooper more than a new H2, till i too break a tie rod

[Zaphod]

Ask and ye shall (sort of) receive:

www.yellowh2.com/photos/movies/belly_button/Button_medium.mov

I know the one you're talking about. I'll see if I can hunt it down...