Front drag link and tie rod question
 

the last few days i've been surfing thru reading all kinds of steering upgrades. went out to eyeball my steering.
Question1. should all the joints be mounted to the knuckles such that the ball joint is 'down' and the nuts to hold them are on top of the knuckle?
#2 is the drag link connected to the steering box so that the nut of that ball joint is under the tractor or is that nut view-able by glancing under the left side of the tractor? I think the previous owner has everything all upside down and backwards

What tractor?

If its the 82 series in your pic the tie rod goes underneath. If its above it will contact the pivot bolt for the front axle.

The nut for the draglink to the steering gear goes toward the center of the tractor.

From your description it sounds like your stuff is backwards. When I got my late 782 the tie rod had one ball joint up and the other down, took me a bit to figure out why it would bind at the end of the steering travel.

Sorry, yes a 782.
after I posted my thread I decided to go out and swap rods around to what made sense to me. It is now as you stated.. Nuts up and in.
While I was under there I looked at the Axle nu and bolt. it was loose. the cotter pin was there but it was loose. Just snugging that up helped take much Play out of the steering. I snugged up the Steering Box when I first got this Cub.
The tractor has always been tough to steer but after reading many threads I assumed it was 'normal'. As I played with the rods I thought I'd make sure the steering wheel had 1 full turn in each direction, it didn't. Dropped the drag link, centered the steering wheel and wheels and adjusted the linkage. That's when I realized the wheels were whacked a bit. I aligned them so they BOTH point straight (at the same time) when the steering is centered. To my surprise the steering is so much easier now and the turning radius has improved. The tractor tires were obviously fighting each other when trying to turn. Considering I had no intention on going out and laying under the Cub on a day that winter temperatures decided to show up... I'm glad I played around.
I looked at the steering exploded view on the CUB CADET PARTS website. I wasn't sure if the direction of the parts in those pics were accurate or if they were just accounting for parts. Thanks for your input on the linkage.