Jerry, I did what you suggest and made a drag link for my restored '36 Chevy pickup from a solid steel bar and threaded one end with right hand threads and the other end with left hand threads. Then Moog ES29R and ES29L tie rod ends were used. Their taper exactly matches the taper of the worn out spherical studs and were a perfect fit in the pitman arm and steering arm. I used the same tie rod ends on the tie rod and that, along with new gears, bushings and bearings in the steering box and a seal in the pitman housing to allow use of gear oil as a lubricant, totally removed the slop and high steering effort from the steering.
At the 1976 VCCA national meet in Colorado Springs the judges did not recognize that change, nor any of the others, and I drove home to Southern California with the 1st place trophy in Class T-2 (1929-36 commercial vehicles).
Even at the national level, the judges are not very observant. They are looking for little flaws like exposed teflon tape at pipe threads and totally miss the big stuff. For example, I made all my gasoline and distributor vacuum hard lines from stainless steel, welded all of the frame joints that were only riveted at the factory and flame sprayed the exhaust pipe with aluminum and they missed all of that too.
That flame sprayed exhaust pipe is still rust free, 35+ years later.
