[fleetsidelarry]

the aftermarket power rack I picked up at the Turkey Run a couple of years ago seems to have developed what I am assuming is excessive play in the driver's side tierod. if I jack the car up and move the tire, the tierod moves in and out. it is not the balljoint. the passenger side is reasonably tight.

I recently pulled the springs to see why the car sat so low (like under 3" ground clearance at the crossmember). at rest, the lower control arms angled upwards from the inner pivot points. Turns out the PO had cut the springs to 10". shocks were toast as you might expect. I had replaced the rack that came with the car a year or so ago because the tierods had massive endplay.

could the "low rider" stance have caused premature tierod wear?

[69 widetrack]

When you change steering geometry only on a few parts and not all parts are matched, you can achieve the stance but another component of the geometry will suffer and carry more load than it's designed for...It's like tuning a guitar, all the strings need to be tuned not just 5 of them. Ergo the phrase, "tuning a suspension". In this case cutting springs to get a desired ride height and not following through with the rest of the parts will result in premature wear in other parts of the steering mechanism.

Hope the explanation helps.
Ray