Tie rods short after suspension refresh

Just refreshed the suspension on 2001 Toyota Tacoma 2wd.

New upper and lower control arms, upper and lower ball joints, strut bar, tie rod ends.

Also did new coil springs with a spacer on top that added .5” to bring the front and back of the truck closer to level. The replacement springs were the same height as stock but have more coils and appear slightly beefier.

Other than that all the aftermarket replacement parts I put on visually appeared the same length/size as the stock parts I pulled off.

ISSUE: After reassembling everything the tie rods are too short to get the wheels straight. They just thread out of the tie rod ends.

I’m wondering if there were enough fractional differences in the new parts to add up and make the existing tie rods too short.

My plan is to get a coupler and some threaded rod and extend them about 1.5inch. Is this a terrible idea?

Is there something else I could be missing or that might be wrong that would explain why the tie rods are now too short?

 

If suspension geometry is changed, every measurement will be affected

are you talking about inner tie rods?
Not outer ties?