Handling quirks after leaf conversion... (continued)

Okay we eliminated the "booty" fab and put the original Wagoneer drag link on and ended up with this, does this look better?



However I just traded one problem for another, now at highway speeds if I hit a bump or groove in the road I'm fighting with it to keep it out of both lanes, it has bump steer BAD. Before it was the opposite, I was fighting with at slow speeds and at highway speeds it was fine. It's definitely :shiver: to drive now, looks like I'll miss my camping trip, was planning on hauling my ATV with the XJ.

That looks MUCH better safety wise. However the best fix IMHO is to get a flat-top knuckle and do true hy-steer. That way you will eliminate bumpsteer and any chance of the draglink contacting the leafs.

Ary

TB-XJ said:

Okay we eliminated the "booty" fab and put the original Wagoneer drag link on and ended up with this...

Click to expand...

Your half way home now BROTHER !! Looks much better...and safer BTW...

:spin1:

You traded an unsafe attempt at high-steer to "normal" steering. You've got bumpsteer because of the relative angle of the drag link to the tierod. The way to do it absolutely correctly is to get flat top knuckles and build a true high-steer (both links above the springs) system.

As it stands, that setup is MUCH safer than what you had before. Though, I'm still not understanding attaching the stabilizer to a custom mount on the spring.
d

nice...i might try something like that myself...keep on researching...

Well flat top knuckles will have to wait, I'll be broke the next two months paying him off for doing the work. I guess I'll just have to drive it back and forth to work my 3 miles and nothing else, I hate not having another vehicle the Jeep is my only way to work. If it was trail only I could give a rats ass.

I looked around at some articles and I think the knuckles I need are from 1973-76.5 Chevy's, I think it will all swap over to my Waggy Dana 44, I think. :dunno:

I had mine setup like that for several months while I got together parts for crossover steering, and I also used a ZJ pitman arm for about a 1" drop. my bumpsteer wasn't too bad, but that depends on a lot of things.

You need to find flat-top knuckles (2 if you want to run the tie-rod over the leafs, 1 if you only want to raise the drag-link) from 70s Waggys or Chevys. I wouldn't trust buying one based just off the year, check it and make sure it's a flat-top. then get it milled, drilled, and tapped by a reputable 4x4 shop. I looked at pretty much every D44 steering arm out there, and I found that only PartsMike's arms had the right length to the hole to give me full steering.

I managed to find a brand new knuckle with all the machine work done and brand new Spicer ball-joints for $125. then $115 for a PartsMike arm and hardware, then I made my own draglink with new TREs. total cost of Cross-over, just under $300. However since you have your shackle at the back, you will most likely need the taller arm and maybe even a spacer.

www.partsmikeparts.com (call him up, VERY helpful guy, and he probably has some used flat-tops ready to go)

here's mine (those are brand new leafs, they've sagged a bit and flattened out the draglink more)

If you put some more castor in I bet it would be a lot more stable at speeds. What you are describing is not bump steer its the steering rolling back and forth due to the excessive draglink angle.

Gary's right, when I had my stock Waggy steering on like you do the tie-rod would roll forward and backwards all the way before it would start pulling right or left. this left a big dead spot in the middle. you could (temporarily) help prevent this by rotating one tie-rod end (TRE) all the way forward and the other TRE all the way backwards using the adjuster, then tighten the adjuster back up, this would help eliminate the dead spot. Make sure your castor is 6-8 degrees.

bottom line is still that you need a proper crossover or highsteer setup, but here are some ideas to help you get by.

c-a-s-t-e-r

c-a-s-t-e-r

c-a-s-t-e-r

Just for the record, where exaxctly do you put the castor?

c-a-s-t-e-r

c-a-s-t-e-r

c-a-s-t-e-r

castor is a genus of beavers
castor is a star in the const. gemini.

castor seems to be a tolerable alternative spelling for "caster"

but........its "caster"

btw, I wasn't trying to start a spelling issue.

I was emphasizing the importance of setting correct caster.

Yes. Caster.

Even with your previous hacked-hi-steer, if the caster was correct it should have tracked fairly straight with no steering input. An axle with a few degrees of caster should track straight even with no draglink connected at all.

Depending on the the geometry of your shackles when you hit a bump it may be reducing your caster even more, possibly putting you into negative caster which will make things squirly. Plus, with zero/neg caster, bump steer will be much more pronounced.

I would suggest a chev/FSJ flattop passenger knuckle and a high steer setup and make sure the caster is okay.

I have a set of flat top knuckles. Just one catch. The tie rod holes have been drilled for 3/4in bolt(heims). If your interested let me know. Or check ebay search "dana 44" the knuckles and hi-steer arms will come, new ones everyday. Good luck

chadc said:

I have a set of flat top knuckles. Just one catch. The tie rod holes have been drilled for 3/4in bolt(heims). If your interested let me know. Or check ebay search "dana 44" the knuckles and hi-steer arms will come, new ones everyday. Good luck

Click to expand...

if he went high-steer it wouldn't matter that the knuckles are drilled. be careful on Ebay, I've seen numerous times a pair advertised as flattops, but really only the driver's side is flat-top, millions of Chevys came with just the driver's side flattop, it is nothing special.

Gary E said:

If you put some more castor in I bet it would be a lot more stable at speeds. What you are describing is not bump steer its the steering rolling back and forth due to the excessive draglink angle.

Click to expand...

I thought that is exactly what bump steer was?

If he has a lot of bumpsteer how is caster going to solve the issue? Caster is what helps the wheel return quickly to and stay in line. What he has is a huge draglink angle making the thing turn the wheels every bump.

The real fix is going to be hi-steer or a properly made "Z"-link. I know it is not the best way but it can be acceptable iof done properly....

notorious DUG said:

The real fix is going to be hi-steer or a properly made "Z"-link. I know it is not the best way but it can be acceptable iof done properly....

Click to expand...

or a K-link

notorious DUG said:

I thought that is exactly what bump steer was?

If he has a lot of bumpsteer how is caster going to solve the issue? Caster is what helps the wheel return quickly to and stay in line. What he has is a huge draglink angle making the thing turn the wheels every bump.

The real fix is going to be hi-steer or a properly made "Z"-link. I know it is not the best way but it can be acceptable iof done properly....

Click to expand...

Bump steer is the change in toe in and toe out when the suspension travels, so in reality a y setup (like stock waggy steering) has no bump steer. However us Jeep guys use it loosely to include its real meaning (like on factory xj steering) and Y steering setups with the relationship of the draglink and trackbar angles.

A Z link won't be any diffrent than his current driveline angle, I don't care how many bends and turns you make in a piece of metal, the line of action is still a strait line between the two points. Z links are usefull in working around covered wagon leaf springs that get in the way, its a space issue it does not change the geometry.

With proper caster his current setup will work fine, but there will be a large dead spot since the draglink pushes down on the tre, causing it to roll, Ideally the y setups will have the tre and draglink near parallel.

you refer to the Waggy setup as a "Y" setup, I've always heard it called a "T" and the stock XJ setup called a "Y".

but yeah, Gary's right, a Z draglink won't help anything, the K link will but I feel is the wrong way to deal with the problem.

i'll say it again, set your caster right, get a flat-top with steering arm, and you will be blown away at the difference. I was. The crossover steering was much more responsive (no dead spot), had nearly zero "bumpsteer", and gave me the ability to turn from steering stop to stop which I couldn't before.

Gary E said:

Bump steer is the change in toe in and toe out when the suspension travels, so in reality a y setup (like stock waggy steering) has no bump steer. However us Jeep guys use it loosely to include its real meaning (like on factory xj steering) and Y steering setups with the relationship of the draglink and trackbar angles.

Click to expand...

Bump steer is the change in steering angle at the tires resulting from vertical suspension movement, not a change in toe-in/toe-out. Stating that a "y setup" has no bumps steer is ludicrous. You could theoretically have a large amount of toe-in/toe-out change in an inverted y (stock XJ) design with no resulting bump steer.

Gary E said:

With proper caster his current setup will work fine, but there will be a large dead spot since the draglink pushes down on the tre, causing it to roll, Ideally the y setups will have the tre and draglink near parallel.

Click to expand...

Even with proper castor, bump steer will be an issue due to the steep drag-link angle. Castor may or may no be an issue here. The current castor angle has not been revealed. Whether or not the draglink and tie rod are parallel is a non-issue.

One look at the current drag link angle and it's obvious that bump steer is going to be a problem. TB-XJ's description on the freeway falls right in line with what you see. The angle of the drag-link being far from horizontal results in steering changes when he hits a bump and the on-center dead spot caused by the "inverted T" linkage results in the tires following grooves in the road.

The shackle revearsal is responsible for a softer front suspension which allows more suspension movement for a given bump or dip in the road. This amplifies the bump steer even more. To make matters worse, the angle of the front half of the leaf springs is creating a small amount of axle steer. In addition to the bump steer and lack of on-center feel, this suspension will have a strong tendency to pull to the right under heavy braking.