Today's job was drilling / reaming the steering arms for the tie rod and drag link. I was feeling pretty antsy about cutting up these relatively expensive parts.
Layout fluid and calipers come out for making hole locations. I'm not going to share my measurements, firstly because your wheelbase and pitman arm lengths are likely to be different than mine, and secondly in case I've set the math up wrong and I don't want anyone to copy my mistake. Just look up ackerman geometry and learn from people far more intelligent than me. I've gone with a 100% ackerman setup here. Did I get the math right? Is 100% ackerman the right move for a daily driver that's regularly abused on trails? I don't know.
Set up in the drill press, breaking out a dial indicator to level the face I'm drilling since there's no 90 degree reference surface on the part. Drilled to 9/16", ignore the step bit.
Still crying from the pain of the $80 taper reamer tool. I used layout fluid again to monitor how deep the taper was cutting. Go slow, check the tie rod often. You're going to want the 16" tap wrench I switched to after taking this picture.
