Homebrew High-ish steer knuckle thingy

alright populous here's the deal:

i have been trying to perfect my steering for a while now (who isnt around here) and keep running into issues of tie rod roll and bumpsteer. the first setup i had was the JCR setup, which i ran UTK giving me a pretty nice dead spot due to tie rod roll. after i got tired of that i went to a homebrew Heim joint setup which i really like save for the bumpsteer caused by my draglink being 4" longer than my tracbar. so here is a pic of that setup:



now before i go on and show you what i am doing i need to address those who will tell me i am retarded for not going full high steer... my reason for not going full high steer is that i really like my tracbar. its the RE heavy duty setup with the brace, and i dont feel like junking that to move it over the axle. however i am still devising a way to flip the tierod up and still have it clear everything.

at any rate, here it is(keep in mind this is still very prototype, and obviously much gusseting, and double sheeredness will be in place on the final product.)









as far as mounting this bad boy, i have not decided if i just want to maintain bolt on status, or fully weld the thing to the knuckle. also i am debating taking the plate that sits on top of the knuckle and extending it all the way down to the origional knuckle hole which would tie it into the tierod as well.



as always i am very open to comments concerns, and suggestions.

:guitar:

Aside from that bracket seeming too small of gauge, you will still need to raise your trackbar with both setups. It's not so much the difference in length causing your bumpsteer, it's the difference in angles. You need to raise the trackbar axle mount to match the drag link.

Gaius said:

Aside from that bracket seeming too small of gauge, you will still need to raise your trackbar with both setups. It's not so much the difference in length causing your bumpsteer, it's the difference in angles. You need to raise the trackbar axle mount to match the drag link.

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you are right, but you are wrong for my setup. i should have noted this before. the angles without the bracket are perfect, and the bracket will move the draglink along the same plane of 13*, and will not change the draglink angle. i did all the math on it, and it should remain perfect, and only affect the length.

as for the guage of material, its .25 thick right now, and with gusseting and other doodads i think it would be ok

[FONT=&quot]Use the old TRE hole. You can never have too much support in such a high stress part. Could you use the old TRE hole as the bottom part of a double-shear mount? If it lines up, it would add a lot of strength.

I too am concern about the track bar angle. By raising the drag link, you are increasing the difference in the angle between the drag link and track bar, which is going to make the bumps steer even worse. The track bar and drag link need to be parallel.
There is no reason to junk your RE track bar and brace to do this.
Raise the mount and use the RE track bar by cutting it to length, sleeving it and welding it up. Drill holes in the sleeve for rosette welds.
The TB frame mount and brace remain the same.[/FONT]

lazyxj said:

[FONT=&quot]Use the old TRE hole. You can never have too much support in such a high stress part. Could you use the old TRE hole as the bottom part of a double-shear mount? If it lines up, it would add a lot of strength.

I too am concern about the track bar angle. By raising the drag link, you are increasing the difference in the angle between the drag link and track bar, which is going to make the bumps steer even worse. The track bar and drag link need to be parallel.
There is no reason to junk your RE track bar and brace to do this.
Raise the mount and use the RE track bar by cutting it to length, sleeving it and welding it up. Drill holes in the sleeve for rosette welds.
The TB frame mount and brace remain the same.[/FONT]

Click to expand...

maybe my explanation wasnt so good before, but my draglink is not going to change in angle at all, the new mount point is the same plane as it was before... basically i get to cut off 4" of my draglink and move the mount point to it

Why do you like the tracbar so much? The stock axle mount is teribble and moving it above the axle and using heims makes a world of difference in turning and "solidness" of the front end. It won't "push" the front end up if if is flatter.

98xjjeeper said:

Why do you like the tracbar so much? The stock axle mount is teribble and moving it above the axle and using heims makes a world of difference in turning and "solidness" of the front end. It won't "push" the front end up if if is flatter.

Click to expand...

for one, simplicity at this point, right now it is my daily driver so i cant just yank the front and and do everything i want to yet. at some point i am going to truss it, move the tracbar up, as well as put on some ballistic fab type of coil buckets and LCA's. so getting it driving nicely is priority at this point. and two the tracbar is fairly new, so it just seems like a bummer to start messing around with it.

Take a look at what I did to mine. Both the tie rod and drag link are over the top. I used a very simular design and took it a little further.

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=996147&page=3

SPXJ said:

Take a look at what I did to mine. Both the tie rod and drag link are over the top. I used a very simular design and took it a little further.

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=996147&page=3

Click to expand...

Your steering and the OP's steering setup looks similar to the "offroad only" steering setup.
http://offroadonly.com/products/new/u-turn/
I have the ORO on mine with 31's I have no complaints about it. I used a TJ pitman arm to move the drag link up about 1 inch and it got rid of just about all the bump steer. I have a JKS track bar that uses the stock mounting points.

SPXJ said:

Take a look at what I did to mine. Both the tie rod and drag link are over the top. I used a very simular design and took it a little further.

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=996147&page=3

Click to expand...

alex22 said:

Your steering and the OP's steering setup looks similar to the "offroad only" steering setup.
http://offroadonly.com/products/new/u-turn/
I have the ORO on mine with 31's I have no complaints about it. I used a TJ pitman arm to move the drag link up about 1 inch and it got rid of just about all the bump steer. I have a JKS track bar that uses the stock mounting points.

Click to expand...

dont both of these setups mess with akerman angles? for DDing this thing i need to keep my geometry as good as possible.

dgrigorenko said:

dont both of these setups mess with akerman angles? for DDing this thing i need to keep my geometry as good as possible.

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Akerman is not really affected both passenger and driver points moved the same. Also had to use a longer pitman. Road manners are great, on road and off road. Steering geometery is great I don't run a steering stablizer. I have $140 in materials and a half day in fab time.

Your on the right track by capturing your heim joints.

SPXJ said:

Take a look at what I did to mine. Both the tie rod and drag link are over the top. I used a very simular design and took it a little further.

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=996147&page=3

Click to expand...

well i must be mistaken then.

i will admit to looking over your thread thoroughly, along with a bunch of others before taking mine on.

Just thought i would update:

i did decide to add in the tie rod heim bolt for additional strength, right now it looks like it does not quite lie flat on top of the knuckle, and that is because of the weld bead applied to the bottom, a little grinding on the knuckle will remedy it easily enough... i also welded everything i could from both sides. the top peice will not go on until i can do a final test fit with the heim hopefully tomorrow.

You know you are going to completely frag your ackerman with that, right?

Gaius said:

You know you are going to completely frag your ackerman with that, right?

Click to expand...

negative... unless i have a terrible conception of the ackerman principle, it should be fine due to the tie rod being in the same place. ackerman has more to do with the tie rod "arms", and their angles. not the draglink mount point. i may be horribly wrong on this, and if i am by all means explain it to me.

So you are keeping the tie rod knuckle-to-knuckle on the lower, stock mount?

Gaius said:

So you are keeping the tie rod knuckle-to-knuckle on the lower, stock mount?

Click to expand...

yes, for now.

ok long time update: i finished the prototype and am running it, have been for a while and its been working out well... not perfect but pretty well. my only complaint is still a little bumpsteer because the tracbar and draglink are still not quite in the same plane. i am remedying this by putting the tracbar OTA and the draglink under the pitman arm shortly... unfortunately this will again make my draglink longer than my tracbar, but not by too much, and since everything will be much flatter the bumpsteer should in theory be minimized.

now on to pics:








strength wise it has been holding up great, i have wheeled it pretty hard in rocks, done fast stuff in dirt, and hit curbs right after i put it on just to test it... it has not even bent nor shown any form of fatigue or wear.

g

That looks much better than that prototype you had.

FWIW, Blue torch fab, MORE, and JB4x4 all make versions of the same thing. Obviously you have the ability to fab though, so more power to ya.

k... So the question is. Why not just move the track-bar frame mount on the drivers side further out so you can run a longer track-bar? More simple and less problematic. Not saying its a bad design, just alot of work and more parts to possibly fail. I run my setup on my Jeep and dont have any bump steer problems what so ever.