Aftermarket Steering

[rockclimber]

Im still trying to justify your test. If youre blaming SAI for the the reason for your tie-rod end to be higher arent you missing one of the most valuable variables of SAI and alignment which is the weight shift of the vehicle while in a turn? if you dont have that weight shift in your test which would leave the body at ride height wouldnt that change the measurement? and go to show a flaw in the geometry and measurements of the steering?

Im not bashing you what so ever just figuring this out as much as I can. Im only asking because I'm working on inverted T on my jeep.

do you know where SAI comes from? it comes from the angle of the knuckles through the ball joints. weight shift will not change that angle, it is fixed through the axle tube.

the knuckles travel in an angle, as one is traveling up, the other is traveling down. thats why you need joints with misalignment on the tie-rod. if it werent for that, you could run straight bearings on the tie-rod and then inverted T would work awesome.

 

[sunburned]

why?
I could slap a bunch of steering components together for somewhere around 250$ but making them actually function on the front of an XJ will cost more in both time and cash.

and the design would still suck.

Dude, I was kidding lol.


Everyone go back and look at the pics of my steering. The tabs for the drag link are mounted on the top of the tie rod, effectively eliminating tie rod roll. The force from the drag link is in the same plane as the tie rod, so it moves sideways instead of spinning it on it's axis first. Plus, running it OTK and a low lift makes the angle between the two steering tubes very small.

 

[psullivam]

I understand SAI. and know that it doesnt change. But isnt it set up along with caster and camber and inclination angle so when into a turn and the weight shift it naturally wants to force the tires back to the straight position?
I now see how the height changes between the knuckles while turning and needing a misalignment joint. So are hiems or tie-rod ends better for when that change occurs while in a turn? could a dead spot be avoided using tie-rod ends with poly spacers at the knuckles but having hiems joints on the drag link ends? while keeping the tie-rod ends for the benifit of daily driven jeeps.

 

[rockclimber]

Dude, I was kidding lol.

lol, its hard to read sarcasm on the internets
:beer:

Everyone go back and look at the pics of my steering. The tabs for the drag link are mounted on the top of the tie rod, effectively eliminating tie rod roll. The force from the drag link is in the same plane as the tie rod, so it moves sideways instead of spinning it on it's axis first. Plus, running it OTK and a low lift makes the angle between the two steering tubes very small.

that looks very similar to my setup before currie

it had a horrible dead spot, I wasted hundreds of dollars and hours trying to make it work well.

 

[Serious Offroad]

I didn't design it, but I'll certainly stand behind it.

You seem to be under the impression that you are the final word on steering.
Trust me, you're not.

The end user is.

As long as the guy behind the wheel is happy with the way his/her steering performans, that is all that matters.

Done here.

Have a nice evening.

 

[psullivam]

with that picture where does your dead spot occur? at the rod ends on the knuckles or the ends on the drag link?

 

[rockclimber]

with that picture where does your dead spot occur? at the rod ends on the knuckles or the ends on the drag link?

both. the misalignment at the drag link allows for the tie-rod to rotate on the misalignement at the heims.

 

[psullivam]

So what about putting a poly spacer or rubber busing between the hiem joint and the knuckle to dampen that roll of the joints?

 

[rockclimber]

You seem to be under the impression that you are the final word on steering.
Trust me, you're not.

prove me wrong on anything I said.

 

[rockclimber]

So what about putting a poly spacer or rubber busing between the hiem joint and the knuckle to dampen that roll of the joints?

thats a poor band-aid solution.

I already addressed that here

SAI (steering axis inclination) makes those spacers are a terrible idea. if they aren't strong enough to damage the TRE, they aren't strong enough to dampen the tie-rod roll.

when I had inverted T with poly spacers, I did a small test, I unbolted the drivers side TRE from the knuckle, then I swung the steering all the way to one direction. the SAI on the D30 made the TRE sit 6" above the knuckle.

I'm not the end all be all steering expert. but I have spent considerable amounts of time talking to people who are. all of those people have the same things to say about inverted T. its bad design.

if you want to run it, run it. you will have a dead spot, if you can live with it fine. I'm just trying to save people from wasting their money on it if they don't want a dead spot.

 

[psullivam]

I just read your thread from when you did that steering a year ago. and did you ever get rid of the dead spot after doing all those changes you talked about? so the only way to get rid of a dead spot is to do cross over steering. But doesnt that keep the same SAI which cause the change in heights on the knuckles which causes the dead spot?

 

[rockclimber]

I just read your thread from when you did that steering a year ago. and did you ever get rid of the dead spot after doing all those changes you talked about? so the only way to get rid of a dead spot is to do cross over steering. But doesnt that keep the same SAI which cause the change in heights on the knuckles which causes the dead spot?

no. I never got rid of the dead spot with inverted T. I got rid of it with Currie steering.

the dead spot in inverted does not come from SAI it comes from the drag link not having direct input on the knuckle. with inverted T, the drag link puts input on the tie-rod, which misaligns the tie-rod joints (be it TRE or rod-end) before it puts any action on the knuckle.

the dead spot is the distance the pitman arm moves before the ends on the tie-rod are fully misaligned and the knuckle starts to move.

 

[Spokes]

it seems like currie is the way to go huh?

 

[rockclimber]

For a bolt on solution with no dead spot, yes.

 

[sunburned]

LOL four pages of bitching and finally the OP agrees to what I wrote in the very first response. And in other threads if he would have read them instead of saying they were all just big arguments, only to start yet another big argument thread.

And rockclimber, I see when you were running your heim steering, you were using misalignment joints on the tie rod. That's probably where most of your dead spot was, and they aren't needed. My heims are bolted straight to the knuckle and can only roll maybe 1-2mm or so. Plus I have the tabs welded to the top of the tie-rod instead of slightly to the front of it like yours. This puts all the steering force of the drag link directly in line with the movement of the tie rod. There is no rolling force. I previously had the tabs welded halfway between the top and the front of the tie-rod and had a bit of an issue with a little rolling, but I set my heims up to prevent it.


Unfortunately, it seems the play I have in my steering now is from a worn out steering gear from pushing around 35's for a couple years.

 

[rockclimber]

Those are safety washers not misalignment spacers, they only allow for a few degrees of misalignment hardly any more than running without them. and I assure you they are necessary.

You can't bolt a Heim directly to the knuckle. There is not enough surface area on the ball of the Heim and the knuckle material is too soft. The ball of the Heim will sink into the knuckle and cause the bolt to work loose.

As far as the tabs go, I tried every possible configuration, and what you see in that photo had the least amount of dead spot. I rotated them forward like that on advice from cracker it worked OK. But nothing like currie.

 

[clean4drxj]

Blah blah blah... ALRIGHT EVERYONE with 1ton setups hurry up and scrap them and go blow 400+ on a currie because rockclimber says it's the ONLY steering that will work!

 

[rockclimber]

Blah blah blah... ALRIGHT EVERYONE with 1ton setups hurry up and scrap them and go blow 400+ on a currie because rockclimber says it's the ONLY steering that will work!

You seem to be mad. You should calm down some.

Please find issues with any of my arguments in a technical sense. I guarantee you can't.

 

[rockclimber]

Also, you may want to be more specific with what you mean by '1-ton'. There is no such thing as 1ton steering. There are certain types of TRE that came on one Ton trucks, certain types of geometry that came on those trucks, but they vary greatly. My issue is with inverted T geometry, I really don't care what components you use.

I still don't understand why you want to cheap out with one of the more important parts of your rig. Is 200$ really worth the hassle?

 

[sunburned]

Blah blah blah... ALRIGHT EVERYONE with 1ton setups hurry up and scrap them and go blow 400+ on a currie because rockclimber says it's the ONLY steering that will work!

I had a Currie setup. Worked great until it finally wore out (I think). Now I have bigger tubes and heims. Still works great. Hydro assist is coming very soon.