i was a talking to Sean Lipscomb the other day about stretching the front of my 7 w/out going through the hassle of moving the steering gear box. he told me that he had seen a guy that that flipped his knuckles around to allow the front to be stretched. he didn't know what diff he was running, but i figured the ball joints of a D44 are the same left to right. so, why couldn't i use the right knuckle on the left side and left knuckle on the right side? it seems simple enough. has anybody tried this yet? proven it not to work?


thanks- russel

I *think* you'd need flat top steering arms to clear the pinon.

As long as you have crossover it works fine. Put the pitman arm on backwards too! I've not seen it done fro a convinience- I've seen it done for a custom setup. ie, you'd have to move the axle REALLY far foreward to make this work without moving the box back.

Scott (Rockstomper) did this on his Chevy 44 under his Toy. I think he had moved it forward 16" or so? Anyway, swapped sides for the knuckles and put the pitman arm on backward. Worked great and all linkage was above and behind the axle. Only catch is that the axle has to go way forward for it to work.

You'd have to set the axle up with no caster. Otherwise the knuckles would point down when they were reversed(assuming you have + caster). Although, maybe if you have a lot of lift you turned your pinion way up which gave you no caster on a factory axle.

CJ

Originally posted by CJ Lagos
You'd have to set the axle up with no caster. Otherwise the knuckles would point down when they were reversed(assuming you have + caster). Although, maybe if you have a lot of lift you turned your pinion way up which gave you no caster on a factory axle.

CJ


:confused:
um no.

Originally posted by CJ Lagos
You'd have to set the axle up with no caster.

As someone else said, no. Caster is determined by the yoke on the end of the axleshaft. If you draw a line through the centerlines of the balljoints it will pass through the center of the spindle, meaning the knuckles are neutral to caster.

BTW, I was looking at my d44 inner knuckle yokes the other day and they are totally interchangeable, like steering stops on both sides etc. Before I cut em off, I marked em D and P anyway, but it looks like that was unneeded. :)


Bob

Yeah what the hell do I know. The knuckles are definately not neutral to caster.

Let's assume that the dana 44 knuckle steering arm is perfectly horizontal with 6* of positive caster. This means the line through the balljoints is angled back.

When you flip the knuckle to the other side so it is backwards, it would be the same as running 6* of negative caster with the knuckles on the normal side. This would mean the knuckle is rotated 12* from the original location. If the steering arm originally had a 0* angle on it, it now has a 12* angle and the arm would be pointing down.

Am I missing something?

CJ

Originally posted by CJ Lagos
When you flip the knuckle to the other side so it is backwards, it would be the same as running 6* of negative caster with the knuckles on the normal side. This would mean the knuckle is rotated 12* from the original location. If the steering arm originally had a 0* angle on it, it now has a 12* angle and the arm would be pointing down.

Am I missing something?

Caster has nothing to do with the steering arm's angle. Caster is a line drawn through the balljoints. You aren't changing the relationship of the balljoints by swapping the knuckle. If you have positive caster the top balljoint is farther back than the bottom one. Pop the knuckle out and put the other knuckle on that side of the axle. The top balljoint is still farther back by the same degree that it was with the other knuckle.

cme,


You can't change the caster without changing the steering arm angle, the entire knuckle assembly is rotating as the caster changes.

When you reverse the knuckle to the other side the axle still has the exact same amount of caster but the knuckle geometry is totally different. Looking from the side of the reversed knuckle the upper balljoint is IN FRONT of the lower ball joint so the knuckle orientation is exactly the same as if you were running 6*negative caster if you used to have 6* of positive caster.

CJ

Lagos is right, the steering arm angle goes with the caster (so with the arms in back they will be angled downward). Fortunately it's a non-issue. If you can tolerate moving the axle as far forward as you have to in order to pull this off then you can tolerate the hi-steer setup that goes along with it. :beer: It would be essentially the same as my setup... I didn't swap knuckles but I do have my tierod in the back. Works great, no worries.

I have to (to some exten) agree with CJ Lagos. The statements about castor (and swapping the knuckles won't affect the castor) are correct, but the steering arms are reversed 180 degrees. Think about a flat top knuckle. If the inner knuckle has positive castor, the the steering arm will point (to a small degree) up, unless the knuckle was machined to be level taking in to account the positive caster (and we know thats not the case)... So when you switch the knuckles to the opposite sides the arms are now pointing backwards, and (slightly) down.

I don't think CJ Lagos was trying to say anything about the castor angle changing, but the relative angle of the steering arms.

My take on it anyway...:D

Originally posted by CJ Lagos
Looking from the side of the reversed knuckle the upper balljoint is IN FRONT of the lower ball joint so the knuckle orientation is exactly the same as if you were running 6*negative caster if you used to have 6* of positive caster.

CJ

I'll agree that the steering arm angle changes. That much is obvious but it doesn't affect caster at all. Now on to this idea. How do you figure that the reversed knuckle changes the upper balljoint from behind the lower one to in front of it? The ball joint locations are fixed in the yoke attached to the end of the axleshaft tube. The upper one doesn't move in its relation to the lower one simply by swapping sides on the knuckle. It can't unless you grind the yoke from the end of the tube and rotate it forward. Here's a couple of crude examples of what the relation would be. The first pic is supposed to be what the right side knuckle would look like installed on the axle with mucho positive caster. The line on the left side (0*) is supposed to represent vertical and from that you can see that where the upper ball joint would be is behind where the lower ball joint would be.
http://www.dana60.com/csp/rightside.jpg

This picture is supposed to illustrate what the left side knuckle would look like installed on the right side of the axle housing. Note that vertical hasn't changed and the upper ball joint is still behind the lower one. Granted the steering arm's relation to vertical has changed drastically, but that has nothing to do with caster. Positive caster still exists to the same degree as it did with the right side knuckle on the right side of the axle housing.
http://www.dana60.com/csp/leftside.jpg

Cme,

THe knuckle does exactly what I said it would...the steering arm is pointing down when flipped. This is why I said I would run no caster in the axle so that the steering arm is horizontal when reversed.

CJ

Ok I follow you now. Your original statement was that the knuckle would point down, not the steering arm. That's where you lost me. Personally I would still want positive caster no matter what the steering arm was doing. Given say 6 degrees of positive caster a standard TRE would have enough flexibility to make up for whatever amount the steering arm is pointing down.

cme,

yeah i wonder if the angle being pointed down is really that bad after all...cool idea.

CJ

yeah, i measured my set of waggy diffs today and it would take about a 16" streeeeeeeeeeeeetch to make it work with the steering box in the stock location. WOW!! i think it's a good idea but not unless i'm gonna try and run 44's.

-russel


is it alright to move the front diff about 1.5" forward so the mounts are at the end of the frame w/o moving the steering box?