What steering

[Cooler]

Since lifting my truck the steering is rubbish. i took it to the garage to get underneath it and what a complex steering arangement it has. so everything is tight underneath and in good working order. however, due to the fact there are so many ball joints on the whole mechanism i can move the front left wheel in about 2-5 degrees without the drivers sid wheel moving at all.

this is starting to really get to me as its really noticeable when doing quite precise driving off road. even on road constantly correcting and wandering. has any of you encountered this problem? also has anyone actually looked into modifying the steering and maybe trying to lose the pitman arm and idler arm ball joint for some other replacement which would stop the main steering bar moving up and down, so would at least cut out some slack.

any help would be great.

[BUSHWHACKER]

Rose joints?
You would need to retain the idler and Pitman arms though unless there are custom versions available?

[Cooler]

was looking at seeing if I could modify a steering rack off a van or something near the right width. Then there would just be the steering rack with two track rod ends. Or the othe option was to retain the idler and pitman arms and remove the ball joints, and attach the steering bar using bolts, castle nuts, roll pin and bushes. Should work as there doesn't seem to be any twist as the idler and pitman arm seem to be running in parallel.

[BUSHWHACKER]

Thats what I meant, keep the idler and Pitman, but Rose joint everything else to take most of the vagueness out of the steering.
I've fitted a solid plate in plce of the 'ragjoint' and that makes a noticeable difference.

3rd gens have a 'normal' steering rack bolted to the floor beneath the pedals. The steering shaft goes down vertically to the rack. It does feel more precise compared to the 2nd gens 'tractor' steering.

[Cooler]

Do you have a pic of the plate you made?

[Cooler]

Right I have had a look at the geometry on the suspension now and have come to the conclusion the ball joint spacers I have are throwing everything out and pulling the top of the wheel in far too much. This is caused by the spacers being on the wishbone think. Looking at the four inch lift kits you can get from the states they have spacers that seem to bolt onto the hub rathe than wishbone, so on full flex it wouldn't push the wheel in at top. Does anyone have a set of these spacers or know where I can just buy the spacers separately from the kit itself.

[wishbone]

Can you not just get the suspension set up properly by an alignment place ?

Don't think anyone here has had bj spacers throw it out so much that it can't be aligned.

I had small 3/4" bj spacers on my old 2.4 and the steering on it was fine.


The constantly correcting in a straight line problem screams that caster is way out.

Maybe consider a HD steering damper.

[Wolfracer]

Strange thread to read.
Is all your lift in the suspension? ie BJ spacers?
If so you deffo need the alignment sorting.
I have found though that the "book" says to set it approx 0.0X* toe in. that's pants and doesn't work too well. A little more toe in gives a lot more positive feel...