I'm setting up a hi steer on a D44 with Chevy flat top knuckles and hi steer arms on a TJ using hiems. The TJ bracket stuff is making it a major PITA.

Is the following statement true:
The distance from the top knuckle ball joint to the drag link pivot point on the steering arm must be the same distance as the steering box sector shaft to the drag link pivot point on the pitmam arm.
How about this statement:
The distance from the top knuckle ball joint to the tie rodpivot point on the steering arm must be the same distance as the steering box sector shaft to the drag link pivot point on the pitmam arm. (differences in bold)
:confused:

Thoughts?

A local guy who works in a good 4x4 shop (as in he does a lot of their fab and custom steering work) told me that ideally both statements should be true, so the drag link and tie rod should mount on the same bolt.

ideally the tirod shoul das far out as possible, but if you have a stout tierod it doesnt matter anyway. I'm not sure on the draglink/pitman arm thing but remember the longer the pitman arm is or the closer the draglink is to the pivot on the axle the quicker and weaker your steering is.

Originally posted by Lucy's Driver
Is the following statement true:
The distance from the top knuckle ball joint to the drag link pivot point on the steering arm must be the same distance as the steering box sector shaft to the drag link pivot point on the pitmam arm.

Not necessarily, but closer to that, is theoretically better. There's a lot of leeway there.

That further boils down to that the draglink should attach directly in front of the upper ball joint, because the pitman arm should be straight front to back as well. That's not necessarily the case, and in some applications isn't physically possible. It's theoretically ideal, however.

How about this statement:
The distance from the top knuckle ball joint to the tie rod pivot point on the steering arm must be the same distance as the steering box sector shaft to the drag link pivot point on the pitmam arm. (differences in bold)

No. You can move the tie rod anywhere front to back, as long as you maintain correct Ackerman angle. Ackerman has been argued to death on here, and the general conclusion is that close enough is close enough. If you want to get it approximately right, draw a V, from the center of your rear axle, through both your front kingpins (ball joint centerlines). Theoretically, for approximately correct Ackerman, your tie rod ends (regardless of your drag link) should lie the same distance from the ball joints as each other, and on those two V lines. Whether they're in front of or behind the axle, is another story. Your only concern there, is that the closer they get to the axle at rest, the closer they'll get at full lock. If the tie rod hits the diff (or the U-bolt plates, the springs, or anything else) during steering and/or suspension travel, there's a chance it could bind up on you, and that'll make you most unhappy.

A local guy who works in a good 4x4 shop (as in he does a lot of their fab and custom steering work) told me that ideally both statements should be true, so the drag link and tie rod should mount on the same bolt.

This is becoming more and more common; IMHO, that's a lot of bending load on that one bolt, and it worries me to do that. It seems to work well, though, so if you decide to go that route, build it beefy and all that fun stuff.

I have a single hi-steer arm on my D60 front knuckle.

I kept my tierod over the knuckle in the default location instead of mounting it to two hi-steer arms because

a) there's not a lot of room on a TJ if you want to keep a front swaybar

b) It doesn't really need it.

I also bent the RE long arm kit's trackbar and replaced it with a straight trackbar made of 1.25" 4130 sleeved with 1.5". It has heims at both ends. It is neither the same length nor the same angle as the drag link (another myth propagated On-Line) and I have zero detectable bumpsteer or wander.

The draglink uses a very high misallignment heim and at the moment is connected to the single hi-steer arm with a signle grade 8 bolt. This is in single shear, I know, and will be remedied by putting it in double sheer with and additional bracket.

The swaybar brackets were cut and moved and I also added a RockRam.

I drove it up to Barret Lake (last trip) from San Jose (around 3 hours) of 75 mph on the freeway. It handled great.

Let me know via email if you want any pics as photopoint has disappeared with all my existing ones - THE BASTARDS !!!

DS

The distance from the top knuckle ball joint to the drag link pivot point on the steering arm must be the same distance as the steering box sector shaft to the drag link pivot point on the pitmam arm.

Theoretically, yes. But a change of 1/2" or so won't kill you



The distance from the top knuckle ball joint to the tie rodpivot point on the steering arm must be the same distance as the steering box sector shaft to the drag link pivot point on the pitmam arm.

No



A local guy who works in a good 4x4 shop (as in he does a lot of their fab and custom steering work) told me that ideally both statements should be true, so the drag link and tie rod should mount on the same bolt

Piss poor solution IMHO. An example of placing too much emphasis on theoretical perfection to the dangerous disregard of real world force and stress and fatigue factors. Welcome to the world of design....EVERYTHINg is a compromise....and this is a poor one. No SAE bolt, regardless of size or grade, was designed to be loaded in shear or bending like this, not to mention it's unlikely that the hole and bolt in question will be precise enough fit for this type of use. If you want to load a bolt like this it has to be a specific type of bolt designed for shear application, fitted to a hole reamed to final size - tolerance in the 1-4 thou range. The designes you see like this typically exhibit in the range of 10-15 thou clearance. It's not a good design.

And don't forget to only mount those Heim joints in proper double-shear (that should get the troops worked up:flipoff2: )

Well, for now the plan seems to be to get the knuckles to a machine shop. The hi steer arms sit at a slight angle to level ground, while the stock horn is at zero degrees to level ground. The arm and horn have maybe two inches of space between them.
I'm thinking I can get the top of the hi steer arm (which does sit dead center over the stock horn) machined to zero degrees to level ground (i.e. the top of the hi steer arm would be perfectly parallel to the bottom of the stock horn) and get them to drill out the horn and arm to match a grade 8 5/8ths bolt (real tight), and use a castle nut on it.
On the side where both the tie rod and drag link mount, there's just enough room for a standard hiem for the tie rod, and a high misalignment hiem for the drag link with misalignment washers on either side of it. So the tie rod will sit on top of the stock horns and the drak link on top of that, and under the hi steer arm.
Like this (http://jeep-club.irtech.com/phils_mods/steeringcomplete2.jpg) except a bit less space between the hiems, the rods will clear each other, but not by much. This would thus be double shear.
I know its not perfect, everything is a compromise, but at least I know the knuckles will be strong, likely the hiems or bolts will be the weak point.
I'm open to any more suggestions.