Almost sexy

[Beezil]

rich....

I've been neglecting to get on this post, cause moab is so close, and my input will cause you more work.

there is NO REASON to have your tracbarmount so high above the axle tube. In doing so, you've opened up a can of worms you are dealing with now. The situation you are in now, is exactly the one I was trying to help you avoid by trying to keep you from going to 8" in the first place, but now that you are there, lets deal with it.

I highly suggest you remove that tracbar bracket, and place a new one so that the tracbar meets the axle just over the axle tube, say between 1 and 2 inches. Buy a tried-and-true aftermarket tracbar fromt he vendor of your choice.

install a non-exotic "over-under" or 'over the knuckle" straight-link tie rod and drag link.

the stringline angle of your tracbar and draglink need to be parallel.

I'm gonna sound harsh here, but its for your own good. You simply do not have the time to be screwing around with experiements, on a vehicle you are NOT towing, in the timeframe you have, with the limited offroad modifications experience you have.

suck it up, we've all been there. There are quite a few of us that have to bust some serious balls to make it to mAOb. The way I see it, the above is your best hope for making it. The last thing you need, is to try to patch or save your current design, so that you discover without having made it to west new york state, that you have to turn around cause your rig is undriveable

 

[FarmerMatt]

Woa there partner. You're completly redesigning your suspension, steering & trackbar with totally untested & unproven home grown designs & fabrication & without any testing or trial period & than you're taking the rig on a 4000 mile round trip excursion with some wheeling in the middle of it? I'm going out to by stock in AAA road side assistance. That will be one heck of a tow bill. Please consider renting a truck & trailer for the week. None of this custom stuff that any of us do works exactly how we expect it to right after it's built. I'm on my 4th steering design & 3rd long arm cross member revamp. Bottom line, the rig will not drive & work the way you want it to right off the bat. If you're lucky it will stay drivable without having a major failure...

On the issue at hand I agree with Beez. KISS (keep it simple stupid). If you have to stay with TRE's than weld your drag link mount on the tierod as close to the tierod as possible. This won't eliminate the problem, but will minimize it. Or go to heims & drill the knuckles out straight. Put the draglink on top of the knuckle & the tierod under. This will help with the angles by giving the draglink more length. If you do this without changing your axle trackbar mount than you will have severe bumpsteer. Every time you hit the gas or brakes the rig will want to change lanes. The severity of this will depend on how soft a spring your running & how much weight you're hauling. Suck it up & torch the mount you made off. The knew mount doesn't have to be exotic or pretty. Just some box tubing big enough to fit the bushing or heim at the end of the trackbar will work. Good luck, I can smell the stress coming through the speakers of the puter.

Matt

 

[vintagespeed]

I'm sending pics of that to FrankenTaco so he can add them to the 'scary steering' page.

Don't feel too bad, at least you lived to drive to Moab. I dont even want to say how many times I've cut off stuff I built.......and mine's not even drivable yet (almost though).