I have a TJ with 35 spline inner, outer front axles. It has the kingpin style ends. When I turn either direction, all the way, the tires do not turn anywhere near as far as they can. The stops are about an inch or more from hitting.
I have a dropped pitman arm that came with my rubicon 5.5 long arm kit. It can't really be lengthened because it would then hit the track bar. I don't thing dropping it any more would make much difference.
The problem seems to be that the steering box is running out of gear. Is there any way to rebuild the steering box with a gear that would not stop out so quick? Is there any other steering box that I could swap in? Having to three point turn everything, when there is more steering to be had sucks.
Thanks for any advice.

Peter

how bout adjusting your steering bump stops?

This is the irritating part. At first I thought it was as simple as the bump stops. They looked to be too far out. So I took the adjuster bolts all the way out to see. At full turn, I am well over an inch from the bump stops even hitting. That is a lot of steering that I am not getting.
I don't think lengthening my drag link would do any good. That would only give me steering in one direction. The only thing I can think of is the steering box gearing. Unless I am missing something obvious.

have you jacked up your front end, disconnected the drag link and manually moved your tires from a hard left to hard right turn to see if there is more to be had? Maybe if something on your axle is binding and stopping you from turning further.

Assuming nothing is binding...

You need either shorter arms on your knuckles or a longer pitman arm.

If you're running 35 spline axles, I'm assuming this is a 60 front end. I'm going to guess your front has high clearance arms to put the steering up top. Your arms are too short.

Originally posted by Mo
Assuming nothing is binding...

You need either shorter arms on your knuckles or a longer pitman arm.

If you're running 35 spline axles, I'm assuming this is a 60 front end. I'm going to guess your front has high clearance arms to put the steering up top. Your arms are too short.

Yup. Mo's right. I'd try the longer pitman arm first... ;)

Jake

Those drop down pitman arms are notorius, for robbing you of a tight turning radius. I think they do it deliberately so that you cant turn as sharp, with the rig lifted. I had a 4" Pro comp drop pitman arm, that once installed, left my previously tight radius about 1" from the stops. I ended up making a new bracket for the steering box, that angled the pitman arm downward, and went to a long straight pitman arm. But when I went to a high knuckle steering set up, I had to go back to the original bracket to get the pitman arm high enough.

I have dropped my drag link off and checked for binding. It turns a ton further when I disconnect the drag link than it will when it is all hooked up.

The problem that I have with a longer pitman arm, is that I am only about an inch or two from hitting my track bar with the pitman arm.

Maybe a straight pitman arm and changing the angle of the gearbox would work.

I don't have a high steer setup. I have a tie rod off of a one ton, and a modified stock TJ drag link. Can't really change any of that.

So, is my idea of a gearbox with more turning in it out of the question? I get 1.5 turns of the wheel either direction now, from center. If I could get 2 turns in either direction, I would be in business.

Thanks.

The Saginaws are all pretty much standard. Im sure there ius some trick steering swag out there that someone has modified, but I wouldnt know where to tell you to begin. It is not that tough of a job though to relocate the steering box, slightly forward and the rear facing downward. You can use the stock bracket, and drill and sleeve 2 new upper holes through the frame rails, at your needed location, and then fab a bracket support on the underside of the frame rail to support the bottom of the stock bracket at its new lower forward location. If thats all about as confusing as quantum physics, I could take some pics this evening of my most recent relocation of the steering box.

Move the steering box forward and get a longer pitman arm, or get highsteer arms that give a place closer to the kingpin to mount the draglink. Either way you could use this as a chance to upgrade your draglink

If you wouldn't mind posting a pic of you steering box, that would be great.

And, where do I find a pitman arm that has a longer throw, or a straight one? Although I don't think a straight one would work the best as my drag ling already is at a pretty big angle.

Thanks.

Chevy Astro vans have a long pitman arm, with a little bit of drop. Or even your stock arm, should work well. Just make sure you have the pitman arm you will be using, when you relocate the steering box, That way you can position the box to where it will work the best, with the pitman arm, and the rest of your set-up.

Ill take some pics of my shade tree engineering, this afternoon, and post them this evening.

OK, Here are afew pics of the relocated steering box.
The 1st pic of the side of the frame, you can see the original mounting holes, with no bolts. The new mounting holes are visible with the bolts mounted in them. The mounting holes were made by drilling oversized holes and welding 5/8" ID, steel inserts into them. You can also see the wedge shaped addition to the bottom of the frame rail, this welded to the bottom of the frame at the propper angle, to allow the stock bracket to fit at the new location, (I welded grade 8 nuts into the bottom) the mounting bracket, just bolts up to the frame, as it did in its stock location.
http://bbs.off-road.com/wwwthreads_uploads/53-606500-MVC-002S.JPG
The steering box now sits out there potentialy in harms way. So I fabricated a frame support from 1/4" flat stock and L metal. The frame support will hold the skid plate, which can be removed to access the steering box, and its fittings.
The frame is really quite strong and could easily take a direct hit, by a rock
http://bbs.off-road.com/wwwthreads_uploads/53-606502-MVC-005S.JPG
This is a shot of the skid plate bolted into place, I welded grade 8 nuts to the skid plate frame, to make for easy on/ off of the skid plate.
http://bbs.off-road.com/wwwthreads_uploads/53-606503-MVC-006S.JPG
One more of the completed project. My steering has good geometry again:D
http://bbs.off-road.com/wwwthreads_uploads/53-606504-MVC-008S.JPG
This really a fairly easy, modification, with just a few tools and some welding.
Hope it helps

This looks like the kind of mod that I am going to have to do to get this to work. Thanks for the pics.

Originally posted by peter33
This looks like the kind of mod that I am going to have to do to get this to work. Thanks for the pics.


dude.. just drill your arm to move the link from the pitman arm to the knuckle about an inch farther back. this will significantly increase turning radius.

Are you saying to lengthen the drag link? If that's what you mean, that won't work. If that's not what you mean, please elaborate. I ain't so bright.

no.. im saying move the hole the link attaches to on the steering knuckle back towards the axle.

given that the pitman arm moves left to right a fixed amount, moving this back on the knuckle will increase the distance it moves the tires left to right.

Ok. I think that you are thinking that I have a setup that I don't have. I don't have high steering, and I only have a tie rod and drag link. With the kingpin type knuckles, there isn't anyplace to move the rods.

What I ended up doing, is I ordered two hi-steering ends that will mount on top of my kingpins, from Avalanche Engineering. This will give me the setup that you are probably picturing that I have already. Both left and right sides will have multiple holes for adjusting things.

As usual, starting something simple, like trying to get more steering, turns into switching everything to a high steer setup. Oh well, I probably needed it anyway.

Thanks everyone for the help.

Peter,

Good luck with it. If you put the steering on those high clearance steering arms, your going to get quite a bit of bumpsteer and find that when you turn the wheel the whole jeep will roll kinda when sitting still, you'll see what I mean.

Plan on re-doing the trackbar.

CJ

Is the track bar going to be in the way? Why would I get bumpsteer with this setup? Not doubting you, just trying to get a heads up on things. I notice from your signature, you have a similar setup. I will have to say, since I went to the big axles and long arm kit, my jeep sucks to drive on the road. So not only do I spend a ton of money on the Jeep, my wife now wants a Volvo. Talk about getting expensive. Oh well.

CJ is prob. just suggesting that you get your steering rods close to parrallel to your track-bar. By going to hi-steer your drag link will become much more horizontal. Just build a bracket on the top of your passenger side tube as close to the upper control arm mount as possible to mount your track-bar. Very easy, very effective.

Check the geometry of your track bar and drag link. I'm running the same lift as you on my TJ with the stock pitman arm. If I were to install the dropped arm, my steering geometry would actually be worse. This may explain some of your on-road handling problems - mine handles great as it is.

Here's a close up picture of my front end geometry:

http://wsphotofews.excite.com/005/LV/o4/hk/Ap97958.jpg

If you look closely, you can see that a dropped arm would hurt my set up. If you are running the same lift set up, think about using the stock arm.

Questions for you - is your pitman arm parallel to the Jeep? Are you loosing the same amount of the turning radius on both sides? I'm asking this because I'm thinking if you just can't turn all the way to one side, your pitman arm isn't parallel with the rest of the Jeep - it's turned to one side or the other, causing you to not be able to turn fully in one direction.

Good luck,
Brian

I would get rid of that weak inverted Y steering set up and go with an independent Draglink and tierod. Or a Wagoneer style were the draglink hooks into the tierod. My pitman is within 1/2" of the tierod and it doesn't hit often.

Either way it going to give you tons more turning than the inverted Y.

http://www.junkyarddawgs.org/ledjer/images/link2s.gif

My pitman arm is definately centered. I get exactly the same amount of turn either way. If I could figure out how to post a stupid picture, I would so you could see. I am assuming you need a photo hosting service, which I don't have.

Originally posted by peter33
Ok. I think that you are thinking that I have a setup that I don't have. I don't have high steering, and I only have a tie rod and drag link.



naw.. you can drill the factory knuckle.. but it sounds like you got it worked out anyway :)

Here's the pics:

And the second

Here is a link to the high steer arms I am getting from Avalanche, that should help to solve this problem.

http://www.avalancheengr.com/parts/steering/high_steer_dana60.htm

How much did those arms run you?


And yes, they should do the trick.

I believe they were about $95 a piece. Haven't got them yet. They will toe in a bit, so I will have to cut down my tie rod. Then, I believe it will be a matter of making a new drag link and extending it out to the one end. I have some 1.5" DOM tubing that should do the trick. And a friend of mine has the ability to tap the holes in the end. We shall see.

H8monday
it appears that you have a hydralic ram. why then did you need to relocate your steering box. If you have the box drilled and tapped, you can actually eliminate the drag link and just have the hydralic hoses run to the ram. the steering box then has no mechanical linkage to the knuckles. Rockbuggy just did this. ask him where he got his box tapped.

Originally posted by thenodnarb
H8monday
it appears that you have a hydralic ram. why then did you need to relocate your steering box. If you have the box drilled and tapped, you can actually eliminate the drag link and just have the hydralic hoses run to the ram. the steering box then has no mechanical linkage to the knuckles. Rockbuggy just did this. ask him where he got his box tapped.


I have driven rigs with hydraulics steering alone, and freeway drives are down right scary. My gf also still use my rig as her daily driver, and my daughters ride in it also. The thought of having no steering with loss of a serpentine belt, or the engine dying, just doesnt tickle me. I like having the redudndancy of the drag link and the ram.