jkap

I am shopping for tie rods, and don't understand the inner and outer difference. I assumed that the outer rods were the ones connected right at each wheel, and the inner rod ends were at the pitman arm and the connecting rod.

The more I research, I am now thinking that inner and outer are in relation to the front of the truck.

Can someone help me out with this?

b4wheeler

You have two things going on under there.

You have a tie rod which connects the two steering knuckles (which are what the wheels mount to), and you have a drag link which connects the steering box/pitman arm to the tie rod or passenger side steering knuckle.
If you are replacing tie rod ends, you need two outers. There are no inners.

This is assuming you have a dana60 front end.

Only an independent front end, like on the newer 1500's would have inner tie rod ends....

DL1221

Correct. But if you have a 2 wheel drive truck, then you do have outer and inner tie rod ends. The outer tie rod ends attach to the knuckles, and attach to the inner tie rod ends with an adjusting sleeve. The inner tie rod ends attach to the drag link, which is connected to the frame and steering box via the idler arm, and the pitman arm, respectively. So steering effort is passed from the steering box to the pitman arm, to the drag link, to both inner tie rod ends, to both outer tie rod ends, to the steering knuckles to the tires.