Double Shear TB bracket and pitman arm

OK, I'm confused.

I'm in the process of getting parts together to complete a WJ knuckle swap. One of the items I have been stuck on is the track bar setup. It's going to be a couple months before I have everything ready for the conversion so I was thinking I'd upgrade the stock TB frame mount to a double shear mount now.

While I was at it, I thought why not get a drop bracket, get a drop pitman arm (nothing really extreme) and reduce the angle of my draglink and TB. It isn't going to hurt when I do the WJ conversion and it'll improve the steering and the fact that I chew up boots on the TRE's in the meantime.

I found the bracket at IronRockOffroad and it is supposed to be a .75" drop from stock. Cool.

I inquire about which pitman arm they suggest and they tell me that I should NOT drop my pitman arm?! WTF! I don't understand why if I drop the TB mount that I shouldn't also drop the pitman arm too.

To complicate it, the stock TB drop is 5.377 from the bottom of the uniframe. IRO says their bracket is 5.75 from uniframe to the trackbar mounting hole. My math says the bracket only drops .38"

I check TNT and their website says their drop bracket drop the mount 2". I email them and they tell me the bracket is 4.75 from uniframe to mount hole. That isn't a drop, that raises the mount.

Am I insane?! If someone can please explain this so my head doesn't explode, I'll be forever grateful!

how tall are you lifted? do you plan to mount the drag link OTK or UTK? what axle side track bar mount do you plan to run? i personally run the RE frame side mount. id personally just wait and see where your at once that stuff is installed. your stocker might be enough, or you might need more than you think.

truth is... your building a custom setup, there is no easy way to say, "you need this part. now go spend the money."

you can take some 2.5x 2.5 0.250 wall square tubing and cut out one side, and weld it the stock mount with extra gusseting , like lots of bracing and gusseting and i tripled up all the welds. itll hold a hiem perfectly with misalignments. Then you can drill your own holes and drop it as much as you want.

if you run like 4-5" of lift and go OTK on the WJ drag link youll probably be flat without a drop pitman arm, or close to it. somethign to consider. then youll need to build a taller trackbar mount axle side, and then you run into the drag link and trackbar not being the same length unless you go to the C, or make the frame side further out, or deal with it as is....

A drop pitman arm puts more stress on your steering box sector shaft. Reliability > geometry.

Once you do your WJ swap, you won't need that drop pitman arm anyways.

Nuts...sorry about that. I forgot to include the details of my rig. I'm at 4.5 inches. (Drop control arm brackets, stock steering setup at the moment. Crusader Uni-frame tie in brackets from JCR including the inside spacer for the steering gear.)

I'll be running the WJ setup OTK. I already have the JKS axle bracket. I definitely want to swap my frame side TB bracket to a double shear. I guess I am getting ahead of myself since once the WJ conversion is setup, all this will be a moot point.

I'm going to be taking a trip at the end of the month and my thought was, if I can get a small drop TB bracket and accompanying drop pitman, that should give me slightly better angles until my WJ conversion is complete.

I don't have the ability to fabricate. A skill I'm very much trying to develop, so fabing up my own bracket isn't going to be possible.

I guess what I am trying to figure out is , why are the measurements so strange. (Loaded question....I suppose its because there is no standard for this custom stuff.)

To my thinking, if I'm at stock right now, and my angles are parallel just a bit steep, dropping the TB bracket should equate to dropping the pitman the same amount. With that being said, if I were to use a ZJ pitman arm, which should drop my draglink by 3/4 in, what trackbar bracket should I use? I'd rather go with your guys experience at this point then the manufacturers numbers. They don't seem to make sense.

Thanks cal. I agree about the reliability factor. I've braced up the frame mount for the steering gear so I shouldn't have to worry about pulling the bolts through. I'm only running 32's. Most of my offroad wheeling is sand dunes, two tracks, muddy fields/roads, and the hill climbing. We don't really have the bad-ass rock climbing here in Michigan, at least not around me. this is my daily driver and sees about 30 miles of highway everyday. Since I won't be converting over to the WJ steering for a couple months due to availability of my welder, I was thinking this might be a good interim fix.

I take all your opinions very seriously...I can't tell you how much help I've gotten from searching this forum. If you think I should just leave it be and wait until I convert the steering, then that'll work.

I don't think I'd waste money on the pitman arm for a couple of months.

Fyi, I've got a tnt arm kit and a re double sheer frame side tb bracket. At high-speed g-out type events I hit my tb on my diff cover. Not too bad, but something I need to change.

I would upgrade you tb and then wait till you are done with steering to see what else needs to change. Unless something is tried and true I lime to go one step at a time, works out better in the end.

Really? That TNT bracket was the only one I found that moved the mount forward to clear the diff cover. Is your cover aftermarket or stock?

Good advice though. I'm just chomping at the bit since the jeep is a little loose on the highway. Not bumpsteer or death waobble so much as a drifting feeling. I used the info at GoJeep.com to setup my caster/alignment, etc, so I'm pretty certain that isn't the issue. I've basically boiled it down to the operating angles on my steering setup and that crappy TRE end on my TB. I'll try to slow my role and take it a step at a time.

If anyone else has bracket suggestions, I'm all ears. I still keep going back to the one from IRO since it looks pretty solid and the price is great. If anyone has one of those (or any other bracket for that matter) and can take a measurement from the uni-frame to the TB bolt hole, that would be awesome!

Just my arms are TNT. The bracket is RE. I'm going to do stiffeners soon and then I'll move the tb bracket a little forward and make a new tb with heims. You should see my steering angles right now... not good. I went to heim steering with the drag link on top of the knuckle. I don't DD it though so it isn't that big of a deal.

Right on. Missed the RE part. Is is possible for you to take a measurement on that RE bracket. Uniframe to TB mounting bolt? I'm curious.

RE Trackbar Mount

Awesome! Looks to be about 5.25. That's pretty close to the stock location.

I went with a custom one from Bryson at Boostwerks...awesome! Was able to move it forward quite a bit and it dropped it 2" lower than RE so a total of 7.25" from uniframe

Wolf,
To reiterate, if you are installing WJ knuckles and running OTK steering, there should be no need to lower the frame end track bar mount. Double sheer, yes.
You have the ability to adjust the axle end up, using the JKS TB axle mount, if needed. There is also no reason to drop your pitman arm, as Cal pointed out, which will result in a shorter steering box life.

It's surprising how little play it takes in a TRE or heim to result in sloppy steering and DW.

My Trackbar and Draglink aren't exactly the same length, but my WJ OTK setup has worked well for several years, rock-solid on the freeway (I often log 4-5hr trips at 75+mph) with no bumpsteer or DW.
http://www.naxja.org/forum/showpost.php?p=244998156&postcount=142

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=913774&page=10

Wow. Love the fact that it pushed it outside the frame. Not sure about that much drop for my setup. I can't tell from that pic, but it looks like the bracket would hit the tie rod under compression. Ever had an issue with that?

Mind if I ask how much $$ that set you back?

Thanks XJJeeper. I agree 100% once I get that conversion done. I was just hoping to make a small improvement to angles for the time being for my upcoming trip, but I guess it all comes down to if the juice is worth the squeeze so to speak.

I guess I'll just run with what I have until the swap is done then maybe look at something custom. There has to be someone in my area I can bribe to make what I want. The above is pretty great. My setup wouldn't require that big of a drop, but it would be awesome to run the mount a little forward and outside the frame.

Hey fellas,

Not sure if anyone needs this or not. I've been putting this together piece by piece and figured the more info the better. There are some details missing so maybe someone can fill in the blanks.

Re: Re: Double Shear TB bracket and pitman arm

wolfman_023 said:

Hey fellas,

Not sure if anyone needs this or not. I've been putting this together piece by piece and figured the more info the better. There are some details missing so maybe someone can fill in the blanks.

Click to expand...

That is baddass!

Thanks! Figured it was about time I posted up something useful!!! :thumbup:

nope it doesnt hit the tie rod. My wheel stuff prevents that. Yeah, it was $80 shipped.

wolfman_023 said:

Wow. Love the fact that it pushed it outside the frame. Not sure about that much drop for my setup. I can't tell from that pic, but it looks like the bracket would hit the tie rod under compression. Ever had an issue with that?

Mind if I ask how much $$ that set you back?

Thanks XJJeeper. I agree 100% once I get that conversion done. I was just hoping to make a small improvement to angles for the time being for my upcoming trip, but I guess it all comes down to if the juice is worth the squeeze so to speak.

I guess I'll just run with what I have until the swap is done then maybe look at something custom. There has to be someone in my area I can bribe to make what I want. The above is pretty great. My setup wouldn't require that big of a drop, but it would be awesome to run the mount a little forward and outside the frame.

Click to expand...