Pitman arm hitting tie rod

Steering was sloppy when I drove it after fixing the broken off inner knuckle. The tie rod end at the pitman arm was hitting the tie rod on my D44 hysteer. When I really compressed it out doing a little air time it must have hit it hard, enough to break some of the splines inside the pitman arm, so it was loose on the sector shaft even though the nut was tight.

I have a ZJ pitman arm which is a 3/4" drop, so I took it off and put on a stock XJ pitman arm. Has anyone else had the tie rod at the pitman arm hit on their hysteer?

I cycled my front-end about 100 times while I was building it, but over the past couple of weeks I kept looking at the pitman to TR clearance & convinced myself that I must have overlooked it during the build, as it looks like they would hit when stuffed. So, I pulled the springs & shocks yesterday & cycled it, again...
My TR stuffs up, past & about 3/4" behind the pitman TRE.
That's with a stock pitman arm, Parts Mike 'short' hysteer arms & my axle pushed forward about an inch (coils almost centered).

Paul

So did the ZJ arm look damaged when you pulled it off? And how exactly was it damaged? I can't imagine splines being torn loose without also ruining the sector shaft of the steering gear. In fact, I can't imagine the arm being loose on the sector shaft with the amount of pulling it takes to get one of those pitman arms off! I run a different setup with a drag link going straight to the passengers side high steer arm and then a tie rod going from high steer arm to high steer arm, so I can't really comment on your clearance issue. Jeff

The pitman arm was a little sloppy on the sector shaft with the nut tight. I feared the worst that I had a problem with the sector shaft, but when I took the pitman arm off the shaft looked OK. I didn't catch what had happened until I cleaned things up with a rag and small pieces of splines came out of the pitman arm. There were three spots on the inside of the pitman arm where the splines had come off.

The stock pitman arm should solve the problem.

Paul S said:

I cycled my front-end about 100 times while I was building it, but over the past couple of weeks I kept looking at the pitman to TR clearance & convinced myself that I must have overlooked it during the build, as it looks like they would hit when stuffed. So, I pulled the springs & shocks yesterday & cycled it, again...
My TR stuffs up, past & about 3/4" behind the pitman TRE.
That's with a stock pitman arm, Parts Mike 'short' hysteer arms & my axle pushed forward about an inch (coils almost centered).

Paul

Click to expand...

I'm right with Paul on set up. When I had the longer hs arms, the tie rod would come up and smack the pitman arm TRE before I got the bumpstops right. Since switching to the shorter PM arms, no troubles.

You're getting harder on your junk in your old age!!!

CRASH

P.S. Maybe the TRE to tie rod contact is what broke the weld on the driver's side inner knuckle? It would impart a torsional load on that weld, and tend to really ruin a balljoint fast.

Since the weld was also cracking at the bottom on the pasenger side, I'm going to assume that there was already some cracking on the drivers side. If I hit hard enough to break splines inside the pitman arm, then I'm sure it would have put plenty of stress on that weld.......and everything else.

I know the suspension cycled up higher than it had done before, from the wire tie that I have on the shock (first time it bottomed out, even after PIsmo), and from a nice mark on the track bar frame mount from the sway bar link mount hitting it hard. The bumpstops work nicely, though, it still didn't slam down so the landing was reasonably soft........the bumpstops had to have compressed a LOT!

Had the same problem on the JD to the point where it actually bent the TR. I built a new TR with slight bends on each end at the joints to set it back, closer to the diff, to clear the pitman arm. I set the front end of the CAT up so that the TR just clears at full stuff. It really is hard trying to balance fitting 37's in the wheel well yet still haveing the front end set back far enough to clear the TR / Pitman. Your easiest way out is to just throw in som 4" spacers up front & blocks in the rear. It will at least give us something to laugh at around the fire...

Matt

Full width axles and leaf springs will solve your problem. :lecture:

Jes said:

Full width axles and leaf springs will solve your problem. :lecture:

Click to expand...

:doh:

I never thought of that.

They seem to solve everything else........

Now that's funny, I don't care who you are.