A different take on inverted T steering

My rig is at 3.5" of lift and still had the stock steering, toothpick tie rod and all. Trouble was that the passenger side TRE had so much angle just sitting level that I couldn't droop the passenger side more than a couple inches before the TRE bound up. Combined with planning on adding another 1/2" - 1" of lift, I knew I needed to address the steering. So I got together with another member and came up with something a little different.

The design had 3 specific intents: Make it strong, increase flex, and keep the drag link / panhard bar angles the same. The other member also clued me in that keeping the lengths the same was just as important (if not more so) than keeping the angles the same.

What we ended up building was a heim joint inverted T. It is very similar to the other designs I have seen that weld 2 tabs onto the tie rod for the drag link to attach to. In this case we put a tubing clamp where the drag link attaches, with stops welded onto the tie rod to ensure that in the rare possibility that the clamp came slightly loose it would still work properly.

But, we ran into some problems during install. I chose to use 1.5" .250 wall DOM for the tie rod and drag link. I knew that we would have to clearance my Ballistic diff cover. What I didn't plan on was that the tie rod significantly interfered with the axle-side panhard bar mount. So we ended up fabricating a new over the axle panhard bar mount, but kept it really low so that the angles and lengths of the 2 arms were very close. As it was a Saturday and we didn't have enough parts to build an entire new panhard bar, we ended up chopping my existing Kevins' Offroad panhard bar into pieces and using it to fabricate a new one.

Pics of the new panhard bar mount:






Tie rod and new mount at full lock:


Diff cover clearance at full lock:


The entire assembly completed, but before I cleaned up the welds:


The clamp is canted so it doesn't hit the panhard bar mount. I reduced the amount of tilt after this picture to about half.




Detail of the clamp:


Looking back, there are some things I would have done differently. But it works well and it was fun to try something a little different. I still have to sort out my diff cover, as it looks like the panhard bar will run into it at full bump on the driver's side.

I'm sure people on here will have plenty of opinions, so [flame suit on]!

Yup we will :laugh:

EDIT: I just realized what you did with the clamp.

Different and looks good.

i like it!

that D30 covers looks crazy

wow, i did not realize how much the diff cover had to be notched to accept 1 1/2" tubing with heims. i would imagine the ruff stuff diff cover is very close to the same (which is what i have). your design seems to be working good. let us know what you would like to have done different. did you use the clamp so you could adjust the tie rod without removing a heim? was just wondering why you didnt just weld it to the tie rod.

Yah I'm amazed with that much taken out of the cover it still clearances the ring gear.

also, was there a reason why you didnt want to go over the knuckle since you were using heims and drilled the knuckle anyhow? i think with an over the knuckle rod it would have cleared the diff cover a little more.

The clamp is there so that I can make small adjustments to my alignment without having spin a heim 180*. I just loosen the clamp and the jam nuts and rotate the tie rod to align, then clamp back down.

I didn't go OTK for a number of reasons. The biggest reason is because then the drag link would be at a bad angle without building a much bigger / taller panhard bar mount. Other than that we noticed the size of the clamp would start hitting the passenger coil and it didn't clear the diff cover that much better. Keep in mind that relocating the panhard bar was not in the original plans, we did that after discovering that it hit that bad. I'm not really worried about it, the tie rod is level with the bottom of the axle and if something hits hard enough to bend that big of a tie rod it probably wasn't a good thing for the axle anyway.

By my calculations, the ring gear now clears by about 1/4". I measured the amount the ring gear stood out in front of the mounting surface then measured the depth from the mounting surface of the cover and figured out I had nearly an inch of room.

EDIT: I'm half-tempted to try and build a minimum-clearance Dana 30 cover from plate, but I don't have the time or funds after all of this.

I really like the notching of the cover. I have the same size tubing for my steering and have a ruff stuff cover(similar to the ballistic). I have had to adjust my steering stops quite a bit to avoid contacting the diff cover and had to grind down the head of my trac bar bolt to allow equal steering on both sides. It would be nice to have the additional steering back as it has become quite apparent on the trail.

Demolition_x said:

I really like the notching of the cover. I have the same size tubing for my steering and have a ruff stuff cover(similar to the ballistic). I have had to adjust my steering stops quite a bit to avoid contacting the diff cover and had to grind down the head of my trac bar bolt to allow equal steering on both sides. It would be nice to have the additional steering back as it has become quite apparent on the trail.

Click to expand...

Are you running OTK steering? According to SolarBell, it would not have made much difference to the amount of clearence that exsisted and may still need to cut the diff cover.

techno1154 said:

Are you running OTK steering? According to SolarBell, it would not have made much difference to the amount of clearence that exsisted and may still need to cut the diff cover.

Click to expand...

I Have UTK steering. I didn't want to venture into OTK because of dealing with the track bar. Either way my Ruff stuff cover would still be an issue. It would probably be easier to notch the cover UTK versus OTK cause of where the tie rod is located on the cover.

i really like the way you set it up. looks good

It's been 2 months now and I thought I'd share a lessons learned from this.

Short version: The guys who have been doing this for a while and have successful rigs are that way for a reason. They know what works. Copy them. If you think you know better, be prepared to pay the price.

This was a bit of an experiment to see if something a little different for a steering setup would be effective. The design had a bunch of good intentions but came up short on implementation. After a lot of time and money I have discovered it's not that much better than stock, and has a host of other challenges that come along with it. On top of that, I was so tunnel visioned to what I thought was the problem that I didn't gain what I thought I would, and only recently actually found the real problem needing to be solved.

I have a dead spot. It's as small as it can be but still very much there. My tie rod may be 1.5" .250 wall but since it's UTK it hits rocks just as effectively, if not more so, than my axle. I had to notch my diff cover not once, but twice to get everything to clear. Since the track bar was built unplanned and with bushings, when I switched it over to heims I had to use misalignment spacers and a bunch of washers to fill the existing mounts. The amount of money and time into this, if planned correctly, would have gotten me a much better setup with less compromise for the same or less money.

Heck even the guy who helped me build this originally thought he would copy it on his new rig, but now he's just buying a Serious Offroad steering and calling it done.

thanks for the update, a lot of threads like this are lacking that.

Glad you did it as an experiment, and had fun doing it
However, you certainly took the long road home on that setup.

Nice workmanship

I have a question on your setup since I built something very similar on my TJ and am in the process of finishing up with the drivers side trackbar mount.

Did you, or do you have any issues with the trackbar hitting the diff cover?

Thanks in advance.

inverted T sucks.

that said, if you can get your DL a bit flatter, it will lessen the dead spot.

and I would replace the rid end at the pitman with a GM high angle TRE PN 2027