Hi Steer... done the search

Spent quite a while looking at the search results with little success as to my problem. Here it is; did the inner C swap on my "polished turd" (HP D30) as others say and ran into a slight problem. When I installed PartsMike steering arms on my flat top knuckles, the tie rod location is not far enough out and the tie rod hits the coil springs limiting the turning radius. Happens on both sides. Solution; move the tie rod further out, but not enough metal left on the steering arm for drilling and reaming out to 7/8 TRE.

Anybody have or had the same problem? Who makes a steering arm for flat top knuckles that's longer so I can locate the tie rod out and get as much steering as possible? I'm running the tie rod on top of the steering arm.

BTW- I'm running a Clayton LA front with RE 4.5 springs and ACOS for a total of 6 inches of lift. Also have front dialed at 6 degress of positive caster. Rotating the front to more or less caste won't solve the problem and relocating the spring pads is out of the mix unless can't find another (longer) steering arm.

I appreciate your help. Thanks

when i was steering arm shopping last year, I remember that PartsMike had one of the shortest arms and that's why I got it for my 44. There are a couple threads on PBB that list every known steering arm manufacturer, just email them and they should get you a center to center distance pretty quickly.

A few years back, I built my HP 44 and got a set of parts mike arms that were not drilled or tapered at all where the tie rod end fits. I might have ordered them longer that what he usually makes too. Take a look at http://www.madxj.com in the tech section for a really good article on my project. You will see the clearance problems I had and how I solved them. One thing to remember is that you want the ball joint to drag link distance to be the same as stock if you are using a pitman arm with the same throw as stock. If your ball joint to drag link hole is longer, your steering will be slower and you will lose turning radius. I ran a drag link to the top of the high steer arm and made it clear the coil bucket at full turn either direction and then ran a tie rod further out on the steering arms to clear things. Since you are running an acos, you could raise the coil mount instead and at the same time move it back a little for clearance. Jeff