Napa TTX castle nuts appear too short

[DieselAmateur]

Doing inner and outer tie rods on my 1 ton dump project today.

Genuine TTX inner and outer tie rods from NAPA. Attaching to the center link, it seems that the hole in the threaded part of the tie rod and the castle nut don't line up at all.

Torque spec is 46 ft/ lbs. After tightening down, the cotter pin doesn't catch the nut at all



For the castle nut to line up with the pin, there's a huge space




I picked up some washers to take up the space, but am I missing something? A discrepancy this extreme just doesn't seem right for it to be this off out of the box

 

[DieselAmateur]

anybody else come across this issue? The original inner tie rods had nylon lock nuts, no castle nuts. Only other thing I can think of is the center link is a different thickness. But that doesn't seem likely

 

[jrsavoie]

I've run into it before, but was able to use the old castle nuts, in my case

 

[Will L.]

I’ve only had it on wrong parts.
I thought about using a flat washer before, but this would require a spacer of hardened steel of a whole bunch of washers. Not really sure thats a safe answer…

 

[DieselAmateur]

I've emailed NAPA but don't think that will go anywhere

According to RockAuto what I got from the NAPA store is the correct part

I bought a few stainless washers, just going to use those. I chatted with a NAPA representative online and it is indeed the correct part. I don't understand how this got past quality control.

 

[Will L.]

If they are simplify making it too long a shaft l, or cross referenced a longer but otherwise identical part- um…ok.
But otherwise a part made that wrong could be like the flow cooler water pumps where they are making them blind off an old part or something and no test run is occurring.
Very very leary.

Like, did they get the tensil strength and hardness correct? Is the taper correct? Etc,