I have the WFO arms mounted in my rig. I have the drag link attached to them, but not my tie rod (yet). There are two problems with the tie rod being back there, neither of which are a big deal.
First, as you mentioned the shocks are in the way if mounted in the factory position. My shocks are mounted with the F250 towers on top, but the lower mount is still the stock D60 one. I thought it would clear... and later I got to witness what happens when a steering arm pushed by a hydralic ram wrestles with a shock body. lol!!! anyway, the shock got a good dent in it. I have looked at my frame and my axle and the arms several times and I don't think F-250 towers are the answer here. Those shock towers are most easily mounted to the frame leaning back towards the firewall. The shock needs to be more straight up and down over the axle where all the brake junk etc attaches to the frame. IMO, the easiest way to relocate the shocks would be with some tube shock towers. I have a set from BTF and some BBCS-15 shocks to go with them. As soon as I do my spring swap Im gonna slap em on. That brings me to the other issue with the tie rod relocation...
I have 1" zero rates and rancho 4" springs. At the moment, there isn't enough clearance over the springs to run a tierod behind/above the axle. It might juuuust barely clear, but once the suspension starts trying to move, its not going to work and the tie rod is going to be a bump stop.
Anyway, if you are running zero rates or thick (more than 6 leaves) spring packs you could have a clearance problem. Personally, I am swapping in rear 52" springs into mine and getting rid of the zero rate, that should gimme enough room for the tie rod even during flex.
only other real issue I can think of is mounting steering stabilizers or hydro rams. There isn't really an easy weld-on-a-couple-of-tabs-and-go solution here that I can see. Some sort of truss-looking member is going to have to be welded to the D60 housing for one end of the ram to attach to. I run a WTO redneck ram myself, and right now its attached to the stock D60 steering stabilizer mount so I'm gonna have to fab up something for this too. Something to think about.
all of that said, none of these issues are insurmountable, or even excessively expensive to solve. I think the trouble will be well worth it to have the tie rod out of the way and relatively safe behind/above the diff.
j
The arms alow for the tierod to be in front or behind the axle. The guy told me that the arms will take out the shocks at full lock turn if the shocks are mounted in stock location. So if this is the case what is everyone doing to remody this??? I REALLLLLY want it above and behind, but im not gunna loose shokes to do it.
