Shorter pitman arm?

[Justin]

I've got my tie rod and drag link mocked up and things look good, except that they overlap a little because I've got the front axle a little too far forward. The only solution I can think of besides moving the axle back is a slightly shorter pitman arm. Any other ideas?

[Woodscaper]

Can you mount the drag link to the top side of the pitman arm?

[Justin]

Maybe, that's a thought. It'd make it tougher to keep the trac bar and drag link in line, but not impossible. Corey suggested relocating the steering box forward, anyone tried this? Seems like it'd take some work to the body mount and a decent sized hole in the core support, but I might be able to move the front axle even farther forward.

[plumbdoctor]

How about back?, 4x4x2 keep the forward facing pitman arm? If it's only a couple inches .... Probably run into the coil tower though...just a thought

[Justin]

Maybe. Gets into the cross member. Already had to notch it to mount the 4x4x2 box.

[plumbdoctor]

IIRC isn't the manual arm a little shorter? After looking at your build thread, maybe this will get you a 1/2 inch

[Gunnibronco]

Thanks for posting this up. I'm going to push my axle forward before/during my Atlas swap, and I was thinking this kind of thing would happen. Good luck, I'm watching to see how you fix this.

[Woodscaper]

You can always do away with the passenger side TRE setup and re work the drag link to mount to the top of the drag link with a saddle bracket and hiem joint. It might cost you anothe piece tubing tho.

[Justin]

I've got loads of tubing, that's no issue. That saddle bracket may be the ticket. It'd also let me tweak the length of the drag link to anything I want.

[Justin]

So here's a thought. Is there any reason I couldn't run the drag link on the back side of the tie rod? If I remember correctly I had to ream out the tie rod end anyway, but I can't remember how much. Also not sure if it'd interfere with the trac bar bracket when turning.

[Colorado75bronc]

Might hit the trac bar bracket, but since you ditched the stock radius arms that's all that it could hit on that side, maybe diff cover on full bump on the drivers side

[Justin]

Diff cover is OK, I can cycle the tie rod lock to lock and still have a little clearance, maybe 1/8-1/4"

[Colorado75bronc]

How much does the axle move forward on uptravel? 1/8"?

[Jesus_man]

Post a picture?

I moved my track bar frame bracket forward and also built a Track-bar/ram assist bracket on the axle:
Frame side (but I did swap drop pitman for a stock flat):


axle side:

[Justin]

Here's what it looks like. I'm leaning heavily towards JT's solution. Justin, what size heim did you use? I'd like to go 7/8" since that's what the trac bar runs, but getting it spaced correctly doesn't have an easy off the shelf solution.

[Colorado75bronc]

Sounds like you're on the right track. Looks like a saddle and heim would take care of the issue and then you could eliminate bump steer by matching the trac bar and drag link length.

[Jesus_man]

Yeah, that seems like the best solution to give you the most flexibility.

I do like the way Battlement made their saddle brackets. Prior to rolling the bracket, there was a hole drilled in the center to allow for a plug weld once installed:


Strength-wise, you probably wouldn't need it on the steering, but it looks cool!

[Justin]

Two questions:

After talking with Josh @ Crawlertech I'm reconsidering keeping my 1 ton tie rod end and not doing a heim and saddle bracket. His experience has been that it will cause the steering to roll some, creating a dead spot in the center of the steering. I've got almost none now and would like to keep it that way. What has been the experience of you guys who are running them?

Also, I bumped the axle back about an inch, setting the wheelbase at about 94 inches. When I move the passenger's side upwards through it's travel there will be interference between the tie rod and the rod end at the steering box if they overlap much. If I mount my coilovers without cutting the inner fender, this will be the absolute upper end of the compression. When you guys have your rigs flexed out, do you ever manage to overlap the tie rod and rod end like this? Not sure if this is really a concern. I can move the steering box forward an inch, but it's a lot of work for minimal gain.

[crawlercreations]

Josh is right, a rod end in a saddle on the tie rod will cause a dead spot and a clunk in the steering when turning side to side. My recommendation is to make a new tie rod and drag link with rod ends only and stack them on the passenger side knuckle. That is how both of my broncos have been and it works great. No issues with it in the 7 years this Bronco had been like it with the use and abuse I put it through and no issues with it on my last Bronco with daily driving, weekend wheeling, 5 years and 30,000 miles. We tried a saddle mount on my uncle's sas Bronco and quickly changed it to the stacked set up due to the quirky driving. He has been running his a ton on the street with no issues with that heavy full size.

[Justin]

Update: I pulled the suspension apart and moved the axle back an inch, setting the wheelbase at 94". This cleared up the interference problem with the drag link and tie rod, but the issue with the rod end at the pitman arm still exists. There is abou 3/8" overlap. One obvious answer would be to lose the rod end and go with a heim, but I'm extremely reluctant to run any that aren't in double shear. The other thing I'm wondering about is running a 1" drop pitman arm and putting the rod end on top of the arm. The photo is with the axle set at about 5-5.5" of uptravel, so I could just bumpstop it and call it a day, but I'd like the additional wheel travel. Thoughts?

[trei75bronco]

The TRE are huge. I put a 7/8 heim grade 8 bolt with a nyloc nut. I have been running ruffstuff heims for years on my steering and never broke one

[Gunnibronco]

Update: I pulled the suspension apart and moved the axle back an inch, setting the wheelbase at 94". This cleared up the interference problem with the drag link and tie rod, but the issue with the rod end at the pitman arm still exists. There is abou 3/8" overlap. One obvious answer would be to lose the rod end and go with a heim, but I'm extremely reluctant to run any that aren't in double shear. The other thing I'm wondering about is running a 1" drop pitman arm and putting the rod end on top of the arm. The photo is with the axle set at about 5-5.5" of uptravel, so I could just bumpstop it and call it a day, but I'd like the additional wheel travel. Thoughts?

I installed my drag link end through the top of my drop pitman arm, just to line things up better. Its been fine, but maybe its not. Yesterday I had 3 instances of death wobble, after hitting fairly bumpy sections of paved road. Once at like 45 mph. I do have a little play at my passenger side radius arm heim- the misalignment spacers aren't tight to the frame bracket, and my tie rods have some significant movement when I cycle the steering. I don't know if its what is causing the wobble, but I'll post up video later today, hopefully. I'm probably going to park the Bronco and tear it apart for my rewire, new coil buckets (move the axle forward), and Atlas/ZF swap now.