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Lifted Drag Link Question....
- Thread starter Ted Z
- Start date
vintagespeed
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Upland, CA
Fact is any heim, hi-misalignment or not, needs to be sitting in the middle of it's range of motion for it to provide maximum droop & stuff. If you're already using up 1/2 of it's travel at ride height then it's gonna bind/break on droop.
With a crossover steering setup the pitman arm heim or tre is providing your droop when the passenger side wheel goes down, the heim at the passenger side steering arm is providing droop & stuff for the driver's side.
I dont care what anyone says, the ONLY way to make your heims sit in the middle of their travel at ride height with any kind of lift is to 'Z' bend the draglink. Sucks, but that's the facts.
A passenger side hi-steer arm will help give you back some of the travel as will a dropped pitman arm, but both have disadvantages too.
Depending on the heims you have, you may be able to get "heim adapters" that will fit inside the ball ends of the heim and use a smaller bolt, these are machined to use the full range of travel of the heim as opposed to a piece of tubing/spacer that may not "suck up" into the heim at max misalignment. There is an 1/4" difference between ball size & bolt size with "heim adapters", ie: 3/4 ball x 1/2 bolt. If you plan on running these adapters get 7/8 ball heims with 5/8 bolts.
Good luck.
With a crossover steering setup the pitman arm heim or tre is providing your droop when the passenger side wheel goes down, the heim at the passenger side steering arm is providing droop & stuff for the driver's side.
I dont care what anyone says, the ONLY way to make your heims sit in the middle of their travel at ride height with any kind of lift is to 'Z' bend the draglink. Sucks, but that's the facts.
A passenger side hi-steer arm will help give you back some of the travel as will a dropped pitman arm, but both have disadvantages too.
Depending on the heims you have, you may be able to get "heim adapters" that will fit inside the ball ends of the heim and use a smaller bolt, these are machined to use the full range of travel of the heim as opposed to a piece of tubing/spacer that may not "suck up" into the heim at max misalignment. There is an 1/4" difference between ball size & bolt size with "heim adapters", ie: 3/4 ball x 1/2 bolt. If you plan on running these adapters get 7/8 ball heims with 5/8 bolts.
Good luck.
Flowers
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- In "The Ham" I am
Ted,
Are the drag link heims the same as the tie rod's?
If your drag link ends are indeed high-misalignment, and you don't have enough travel before binding becomes an issue, you could use misalignment washers to increase the range.
Flowers
Are the drag link heims the same as the tie rod's?
If your drag link ends are indeed high-misalignment, and you don't have enough travel before binding becomes an issue, you could use misalignment washers to increase the range.
Flowers
I've been running a slightly bent (a real lazy S shape) draglink for about a year because of the same issue. It was a temporary fix until I got the money together for a high steering setup. I used 1.25" O.D. .288 wall DOM for the link.
It's not a perfect setup, but it has worked for now. I have been using QA1 ends with misalignment washers. I was still maxing those out and I'm only have about 6"-7" of verticle droop. The binding was happening during articulation.
I switched to FK high missalignment joints a few weeks ago and feel I'm in safe terriotory (joint travel). The problem I'm having with them is the body is contacting the mounting surface before maximum travel is reached. I put a missalignment washer on the top side for a safety washer so I'll probably use one as a spacer bellow the joint to stop the contact.
High steering is definately on the board for this fall or winter. If I end up using heims on it I'm going to try and incorporate a double shear mount for them on the arms. After looking at the damage to the QA1's I removed it scared me a little and I have never been overly happy with a single shear mount. I have had much less problems with heims than TRE's though.
Later,
Lincoln
It's not a perfect setup, but it has worked for now. I have been using QA1 ends with misalignment washers. I was still maxing those out and I'm only have about 6"-7" of verticle droop. The binding was happening during articulation.
I switched to FK high missalignment joints a few weeks ago and feel I'm in safe terriotory (joint travel). The problem I'm having with them is the body is contacting the mounting surface before maximum travel is reached. I put a missalignment washer on the top side for a safety washer so I'll probably use one as a spacer bellow the joint to stop the contact.
High steering is definately on the board for this fall or winter. If I end up using heims on it I'm going to try and incorporate a double shear mount for them on the arms. After looking at the damage to the QA1's I removed it scared me a little and I have never been overly happy with a single shear mount. I have had much less problems with heims than TRE's though.
Later,
Lincoln
vintagespeed
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Upland, CA
People will say that a Z bent draglink is weaker than a straight one. Can't argue with that but when you're using heavy wall .250 or greater DOM then it's not much of an issue. I wheeled really hard with the setup below and never once even thought of damaging the draglink. This was with the SkyJacker big dropped pitman arm.
I ran hi-steer arms on my D44 front and high quality FK rod ends, but I dont have enough droop at all, gonna have to Z bend this one too, although not as much.
I ran hi-steer arms on my D44 front and high quality FK rod ends, but I dont have enough droop at all, gonna have to Z bend this one too, although not as much.
