XJ sector shaft brace - without losing or relocating sway bar

Finally got everything pretty much where I want it on my Jeep other than the last gremlin causing a front end clunk, and figure it's time to build a sector shaft brace. As I've gone through a few steering boxes (sector shaft seals and bearings), I suppose it's possible (however unlikely) that my clunk is just a sloppy sector shaft. Current box (another Dakota box) has a very small amount of play in the shaft and has started leaking. Before I replace it again, I wanna have it in double sheer.
I've seen lots of sector shaft braces done with pillow blocks on JK's and other larger trucks, but never actually seen one on an XJ. Just trying to design it in my head, the sway bar seems to always be in the way unless I want to fabricate the mount with 8 or 9 angles to wind around the bar (or relocate the bar an inch or three forward.
Because of the sway bar location, I've put off the sector shaft brace for a year or so, as I figured I'd just replace it with an anti-roll bar, but I can't on principle, pay $700 for a goddamn torsion bar with steel arms (I'll build my own when I find an appropriately sized bar and/or find a machinist with reasonable rates).

Anyhow, anyone done a sector shaft brace, while retaining the sway bar, and got pictures of how they put it together?
I picked up two pillow blocks last night to test with.



I think the big square one would be easier to work with, if I cut it into a diamond shape, but still not having any good ideas one how best to mount it. Idea's?

Boostwerks sells a prefab, sexy-as-hell front end brace. I think you have to drop the sway bar a bit but that's no big deal if you have adjustable links anyway.

Linky: http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1109441

Yea, the Boostwerks kit looks good (though I almost always prefer to build my own gear), but the sway bar drop just doesn't appeal to me. The sway bar is already hanging too low stock, and occasionally gets hung up. Dropping it 2-3" (which is what Boostwerks suggests) would put the sway bar waaay too low.

I just took another look under the Jeep and came up with two possible plans.
1. Fabricate a mount that bolts to the sector shaft cover bolts, wraps around to the bottom of the box, and is then braced to the passenger rail. This gives me lots of clearance for the sway bar, but because of the V8 swap, I've got a much larger rad, and with the durango boxes diameter, I've only got about 1/8" between the steering box and the rad. I'm not sure I'd have enough room to get the plate between the two without rubbing, unless I could find someone to bend a real close curve into my plate.
2. I just remembered I have a WJ sway bar, which has longer arms, which puts the end of the arm about 2" behind the axle mounts. My rad hangs down all the way to the bottom of the LOWER rad support, so clearance with the sway bar would be tight, but it may fit. If so, that gives me another 2" to play with around the sector shaft, which should be sufficient to clear everything.

I'm goona pull the sway bar after work and try to line everything up. I think option 2 may work, in which case I'd fab up a mount similar to the boostwerks setup.

I've been wanting to do this for a while, myself, but didn't realize a pillow block would be usable. Definitely keeping an eye on this one...

Pillow block seems like a pretty standard option. There are certainly different grades available, but I feel like even a bearing with a 2000lbs axial load rating should be more than sufficient, given the tire deflection will soak up most of the load.

What ever you end up doing, just make absolutely sure the pillow block doesn't have any pre-load in any direction on the steering box, otherwise you'll cause more harm than good.

I designed our brace in a way that allows the bearing to be centered by the sector shaft and not the brace itself.

The plan is to build the pillow block mount with fairly large tolerance for the bolts so I can bolt up the brace first, then slide the bearing on, and then torque it down. This should remove any possibility of preload. I'll probably also be using a 3 dimensional bearing (no idea the correct term. They spin on two axis) to reduce the possibility of torsional preload in the event my frame still manages to flex at all (it really shouldn't as it's very well plated/braced, but never know).

Okay, so there's really no way to build the mount while retaining the WJ sway bar. I might be able to sneak an XJ bar in there, due to the less severe angle, but I'd still have no room for the bar to move up during compression. Can't drop it for the same reason. Angle is just too steep with the axle mounts located above the steering. On top of that, I can't just run a piece of square tube along the bottom because the rad is sorta in the way.
I'm thinking I may have to just build the mount without the sway bar in mind, and instead work on building it to incorporate a torsion bar for the anti-rock. I figure a 3/4" bar should be roughly appropriate for my weight (it's a bit heavy, but that'd help force my ass end to flex a little more). Run a 2" square tube directly under the rad support, spaced low enough to clear the bottom of the rad (I'd be cutting out the bottom lip of the rad support as well, and welding it to the new tube). Then I can throw some square inserts into the ends later, with 3/4" round busings or bearings for the anti-rock later. Still not super stocked about the plan because it decreases my ground clearance by 3 inches, but it's mostly just being picky, as my bumper sticks way out the front anyway so the odds of that clearance mattering, are slim.

Maybe it's time to look into hydro assist. It would take a lot of load off your box if youre having that hard of a time packaging a brace. While a brace would still be worthwhile, you could design. Something smaller. And throwing a new bearing and sector shaft seals is pretty easy, could save you some money if again your eating through boxes that fast.

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Okay, two votes for hydro. Will it actually provide enough stiffness to prevent my sector shaft bearings from esploding? I've heard lots of guys claim it will, while I seem to see a lot of guys with hydro also running shaft braces as well...
I've no problem going hydro, but I have no need of more steering power at all, so it'd damned better solve the sector shaft issue.

blistovmhz said:

Okay, two votes for hydro. Will it actually provide enough stiffness to prevent my sector shaft bearings from esploding? I've heard lots of guys claim it will, while I seem to see a lot of guys with hydro also running shaft braces as well...
I've no problem going hydro, but I have no need of more steering power at all, so it'd damned better solve the sector shaft issue.

Click to expand...

I know of exactly 0 rigs outside the race environment that have had a steering box issue once they've added assist. and I have yet to see a single one with a sector shaft brace.

adding a ram solves 99% of all issues.
it relieves the stress of steering from the trackbar and the steering box.

once you add a ram, the amount of force seen by the box is very minimal.

Okay, so here's my question about hydro assist.
If you've got any angle to your drag link at all, when the suspension compresses, either the wheels have to turn right, or the pitman has to go left, unless you don't have a track bar. With hydro assist, you've got a piston that isn't being told to expand or retract, so it's essentially acting as a brace, holding your wheels in the position they're in, with respect to the axle. So how the hell does the suspension compression (or droop...) not end up with MORE force against the pitman? You've got a solid triangle between your axle, track bar, and suspension compression, and the only room for any give in the system is the pitman.

The only answer I can come up with is that the suspension going up, pushes the pitman over to the right, which cracks the valve enough to allow the cylinder to expand/retract, but this should still result in more force being transferred to the pitman/sector shaft, than if the wheels could push slightly right on compression.

No, I don't have a 45 degree track bar . It's probably around between 10 and 20 degrees.

The cylinder doesn't make it impossible to have the wheels turn without any input. I.e., I could still flat tow my XJ fine with the ram on there. I'd be willing to bet that you're not destroying your box with suspension compression and droop, but because youre running 35's. Are you running a stock box? I found a need for more steering power on 33's. Hard to believe that you don't need more power with the stock set up.

Nope. Durango box powered by a chevy pump. The stock box started sucking air somewhere, so I went with a Durango box. Blew the seal and had some play in the sector shaft after a year, so tossed in another one. Same issue a year later. My steering power is more than sufficient for 35's. The box is geared almost identically to a full size chevy box, and almost exactly the same diameter. The chevy box has no problem turning 37's in the k1500.

But, even if the ram allows some give, it's still less allowance than no ram at all, and that compressive force have to go SOMEWHERE, and the only place I see for it to go, is the pitman.

If you had that much bumpsteer it probably drives like crap. In a properly designed suspension, this should not be a problem. And you'd have to have a death grip on the wheel to make it any amount of a problem. I think your over thinking it.

I'll take your word for it. My steering is pretty well tuned. Definitely no bumpsteer or really any issues. It rides very surprisingly nice for it's size.

Onto the next. While ram assist kits are pretty cheap, I've had very bad luck with any off the shelf kits for anything 4x4, which is why I build everything myself. I've got a decent handle on hydraulics generally, but don't know heaps about the internals of the steering box itself. I'm assuming it has a pressure release valve internally to not blow itself up at lock right?
As for ram selection though, I'm not really sure how to select the correct bore, without knowing the flow rate of the box itself. Am I over thinking this as well? Should I just stick a 1.5" bore, 6-8" stroke ram in front and expect it'll steer the same speed as my pitman? (This is where I'm confused... Does the ram just magically move at the same speed as the pitman, through wizardry? I see a lot of guys just throwing whatever ram they could find, and the only complaint ever being that too big a bore will move too slow, but somehow too small a bore doesn't try to drive the steering faster than the pitman is moving).

I've built hydraulics for farm equipment and other heavy machinery and I can't really imagine it's much different. Just tap the box for high and low pressure, stick a cooler, filter, and reservoir inline on the low side somewhere, hook up the ram, do a few measurements and burn it all in? (the magic to me, is how the steering box works).

If there is no bump steer then there is no wheel turning upon suspension compression and I no longer know what your concern would be with having hydro assist

There is always bump steer in any cross-over system. The amount may not be perceptible at the steering wheel (as is the case in my setup), but it IS there, no matter what you do, unless your track bar and drag link are both mounted at exactly the same point (left and right) on both the axle and frame, with exactly the same angle and length. Getting this perfect with any cross over is not possible because the track bar would have to be mounted on the knuckle, just like the drag link.
I know I'm going a little overboard there, but I just want to make sure that I'm being clear about where my problem is and isn't, and the THEORY behind bump steer, means all crossover must have it, to some degree. Whether or not that degree is enough to cause any real binding is another question.

At this point I feel like the best answer is that if you're not feeling bumpsteer, then you won't have a problem with binding because the fluid volume will equalize between the box and the ram, so the system will soak up that small amount of force due to compression travel.

Just discussing this on another local forum as well, and it's sounding to me like as long as you get the stroke roughly correct and your bore isn't too large for your pump volume, the rest is all cake. A 1.5" bore should be more than sufficient for me, and my chevy pump is the same pump PSC sells, so I shouldn't have to worry about either volume or pressure for a 1.5" ram.
Just trying to track down some Offset TRE's now, because if i"m going through the trouble of the ram assist, I might as well build it for full steering throw . Currently, tie rod is just running into the diff cover on left lock, and just touching a coil bucket on right. (p.s. I'm aware that may very well be the reason my sector shaft bearings keep blowing out. I doubt its the case, but it's something I hadn't really considered till today).