Swapping in a Chevy drag link

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Swapping in a Chevy drag link

Postby Fred_M1010 » Mon Oct 15, 2012 4:37 am

I got pretty tired of not being able to center the steering box a while ago...
The fact that I couldn't turn fully to the right wasn't the biggest problem,
it was the slop in these steering boxes when they aren't centered.
They are designed to be tighter at center, and without an adjustable drag-link, it isn't possible to have it centered when driving straight.

So I've had the idea to swap in an adjustable drag-link from a Chevy, for some time...
But the stock pitman-arm from the Dodge wouldn't work very well since it isn't angled.
It would work at ride height, but would break the Drag-link ends at even the slightest offroad driving.
I was thinking of swapping out the sector shaft from the steering box and use a pitman arm from a 4wd Chevy truck, but that one has too much twist in it instead, so the DLE would bottom out on compression instead.

If you take a look at the stock Dodge drag-link there's a lot of bend in the front end (left in picture)
Image

I measured and calculated that a pitman arm with a 15 degree twist would be optimal with my 2-3" of lift
So I decided to twist the stock piman arm from the Dodge instead.
I heated it until it had a dull cherry red color, and then twisted it with a long pipe wrench until I got the correct angle.
Then I let it cool slowly over night in a bucket of sand.
Image

Another thing to have in mind is that the Chevy DLE:s has a slightly bigger hole than the ones on the Dodge.
The taper is the same though at 1:8, or 1.5 foot per inch if you prefer that.
So I bought a reamer from Xkut on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-1-2-TPF-BALL- ... 232071e05c

Stay away from Snap-on:s "Repairmans reamer" that sometimes is marketed as an 1:8 reamer by some offroad-companies, but it's more like 1:6,7 or something like that.

Since there's a bigger distance from the steering box to the axle on the Dodge, I had to lengthen the center of the Chevy Drag link with a tube.
And since I've had some problems with bump-steer I installed a block for the steering arm while I was at it.
Image

Image
I did suspect that the block would be too high , but I didn't think it would so bad...

...but it was, the bump-steer got a lot worse even :shock:
And after giving it some thought I think it's pretty obvious, a drag link should be parallell to the arc of the spring,
not horizontal like many seems to think.
It's even prefered that it points moore down than the spring, since the axle moves backwards when the springs compresses.
Given that the springs isn't flat or have negative arc to begin with.

But then I realized that the Chevy stering arm is a little different, and thanks to that the DLE is inserted from above, it is about 1" higher than the one from the Dodge.
So thanks to that I could ditch the block, and now I have almost no bump-steer at all :D

Here's the Chevy steering arm to the left and the Dodge one to the right:
Image

Image

Since the Chevy arm points sligthly backwards, one could grind of the indexing tabs on the Dodge pitman arm,
so it could be pointed backwards to match that, cause in theory it could be a tad more faster when turning left now.
But in reality that isn't noticeble at all.
I just lengthened the drag-link some more to compensate for this.

This is how it looks like from the side now:
Image
It's incredible that so little difference could make such a big difference
my bump-steer is gone, and the steering is super tight, this was the best mod I've done to this truck so far :D

If you want it to look a little classier, you could order a custom length draglink with jamb nuts from companies like WFO concepts or Offroad design
-91.5 W250
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Re: Swapping in a Chevy drag link

Postby simplysmn » Mon Nov 05, 2012 9:51 pm

Or better yet loose the plate and all the junk steering and go cross over steering best thing you will ever do to your truck .
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Re: Swapping in a Chevy drag link

Postby Fred_M1010 » Tue Nov 06, 2012 12:38 am

simplysmn wrote:Or better yet loose the plate and all the junk steering and go cross over steering best thing you will ever do to your truck .

I'm not so convinced about that.

There are two pros for crossover as I see it.
1. you can have a stupid amount of flex in the suspension (which isn't needed in my case)
2. you can ditch the steering plate (which i give you, could be a very good reason)

But there are also some cons:
1. It can worsen the play in the steering, as it tries to move the axle side-ways,
and the shackles, the bushings and the springs themselves can move some sideways,
but front to back it cant move much at all.
2. you could actually get worse bump steer than with a properly set up push-pull steering.

But with that being said, I've got cross-over in my K30, and I love it in that truck, but that's an offroad-only truck.
Road manners aren't really a priority in that one :)
Image
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Re: Swapping in a Chevy drag link

Postby BILTIT » Tue Nov 06, 2012 6:31 am

A double steering stabilizer fixed my bumpsteer with crossover. I do have some play but i think its in my box.

I also have greater turning radius w/crossover.
Derek B.
2003 QuadCab, Tater 62/65 341cw, Smarty Touch SW9, Full Billet trans.
91.5 W250, coolertubz, HE351CW, PS IC, Alcans, GVOD, Valair DD, bags, crossover.
1974 Pontiac Ventura,best of 11.97 at 112 so far.
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