85 K5 Blazer, 4"-5" lift Steering Problem

[RSAP]

Steering gear box brace is good idea. I saw some flex and didn’t really think there was a fix for that

 

[K85 Octane]

Are you in Rancho or Havasu?
Give me a reason to drive the blazer, check out another Blazer

 

[RSAP]

Are you in Rancho or Havasu?
Give me a reason to drive the blazer, check out another Blazer

Rancho full time, havasu weekends.

 

[K85 Octane]

Have you driven it since doing to stuff you posted?
And yeah, those frame “spacers” are terrible. The U-joint angle is really only something to worry about if you plan on doing a lot of 4H driving. Otherwise, remove the spacers and mount that poor crossmember back against the frame where it wants to be.

If 4H is used a lot, replace the spacers with a 1x2x12” piece of square tubing. Whatever size you need.

 

[RSAP]

Have you driven it since doing to stuff you posted?
And yeah, those frame “spacers” are terrible. The U-joint angle is really only something to worry about if you plan on doing a lot of 4H driving. Otherwise, remove the spacers and mount that poor crossmember back against the frame where it wants to be.

If 4H is used a lot, replace the spacers with a 1x2x12” piece of square tubing. Whatever size you need.

I had the exhaust tweaked to allow for the new angle but the crossmember is still in the way and needs to be addressed. Also found a loose ball joint and tightened that down. Driving has improved.

Next steps is the cross member, the steering gear box brace to cure the flex I see between gear box and frame, and swap out the tires

 

[6872xtc]

Usually the crossmember gets dropped down like that trying to get rid of vibrations in the rear driveshaft. But obviously it causes problems with the front driveshaft. You may end up getting a vibration in 2wd from the rear shaft when you pu the crossmember back up where it it supposed to be. And you may not know, but the factory put small diameter spacers on those bolts, on the top side of the frame to give the bolts more length in order to keep them tight. It gives them some length so that they have some room to stretch and hold tension. The spacers that you have may not be small enough in diameter to move up top.

 

[K85 Octane]

wow
I probably shouldn't run through threads while on the train/bus. @6872xtc
haha
yes, you might find yourself needing a shim on the rear axle after moving the T-case up. You might double check the driveshaft length afterwords too. Sometimes the vibration can come from the slip being pulled too far out already.

 

[RSAP]

few things i skimmed over and noticed .

has front wedges on the springs to help with pinion angle . but these kill caster angle a lot of the times and make the steering funky .

also the drag link from the steering box / pitman arm to the axle arm / steering arm looks to be about dead level . stephen from offroad design did this super WRITE-UP on why level is BAD and you need some down angle to the rear . i think it has to tall of a steering arm on the axle side .

for a better ride ditch the inner shocks on the front . thats way old school tech and found to give a hard ride .

if you still wish to have a sway bar but not be bound up get this kit . disconnect kit . helps with lift correction and lets the bar flex and swing as the axle moves forward and back in its arc .

Didn't know the new caster until I got her in for new 35's and during alignment.. I got some initial numbers back on the caster..... After removing the front shims and adding longer shackle on the rear mount of the front leaf springs, the caster is now at ~6.6* Left Front and 6.6* Right Front (spec range 7.5 - 8.5). This is much improved over the 2.3* LF and 2.0* RF. Also seems improved with single shock... Shackles were custom made, guy who made them said same thickness as stock shackle.... which I think was 3/16.

The shop doing the tires and alignment don't give me much confidence on their alignment skills... I saw the new caster * while they had it on the machine, but didn't finish... they had to keep it overnight, saying the alignment was way out of whack and needed lots of work for the following. The readings don't seem to be anything crazy, so I don't know why the shop is taking so damn long. Here's the initial readings, before they touched it...

1) Steering wheel was upside down when tires were straight
2) Toe was off at -6.33* LF and 6.52* on RF (spec -.06 to .06)
3) Caster as noted above is now 6.6* LF and 6.5* RF

 

[RSAP]

These guys pretty well have it nailed. A slightly unrelated part that can play in is a steering box brace too. Getting a little flex out of the frame area there can help.

And watch out for the stupid little stuff that matters like the seized up bushings and wallowed out mounting holes mentioned above. Another sneaky one is sticky or tight ball joints and tie rod ends. We fought a superduty pretty hard till we found the ball joints were really tight and it wouldn't return to center and hunted around on the road pretty bad. Another fine tuning thing to look at is a tire swap. We've messed with lots of things on a vehicle trying to make it go down the road nice and switched tires as a last resort and it turns out we should have started with the tires because they fixed it. And I'm talking some big brands and nice tires that just didn't gel with the vehicle so it's not like we were getting rid of super crappy tires and putting on nice ones.

That steering box brace and quick release for sway bar are two things I plan to do.. I noticed some flex in steering box mount when the steering wheel moved. I checked and tightened down those bolts again for now, just to be sure.

 

[RSAP]

wow
I probably shouldn't run through threads while on the train/bus. @6872xtc
haha
yes, you might find yourself needing a shim on the rear axle after moving the T-case up. You might double check the driveshaft length afterwords too. Sometimes the vibration can come from the slip being pulled too far out already.

The thing throwing me off now is the crossmember/ T-case. After moving the exhaust to make room for the axle, the crossmember still hits the axle.... Crossmember looks tweaked possibly like it hit a rock which dented it pretty good and could be cause of the tweak. I am confused about removing the drop spacers to raise T-Case back up... won't that make the angle worse? it's at a pretty good angle with the drop spacers... front axle is currently disconnected... but also noticing it looks like Prior Owner put a CV axle (I think, based off reading and then searching for pictures ).. Will grab some pics and edit post to show what I mean..

 

[sweetk30]

caster/camber on these is what it is unless you do special shims on the spindle to knuckle and or off set sleave on upper ball joint . most the time its not worth it . just set toe and center the wheel and drive it and watch for wear .

to center the steering wheel its the drag link from the box to axle . this will not screw up alignment . its just for the wheel center.

the c/v head for the front shaft sometimes needs a little work to clear the crossmember with 4" and up lift .

 

[K85 Octane]

Fontana PickAPart has one K10
Riverside has a K20 suburban
There are a few more squares in the area but they are 2wd.
Point being, find a new crossmember. I thought it looked twisted in your first pictures. Also get a new trans mount. That thing is wasted.

 

[Wes Harden]

Crossmember goes on top of lower frame rail. I haven't seen that style b4 exept on mid 80s k30
This the flat one on my 77 k20. I don't
remember if this is the cross member
from the t350 np203 or the sm465 np205 combo

 

[sweetk30]

1984-older = flat style for long adapter foot height like you have .

1985-newer = W or single hump like he has for short adapter foot height .

but yes his should be up inside the frame flat on it and use the outer holes not the center like they did for his 1/2 ton frame last i recall but i could be wrong .

 

[6872xtc]

The part that connects power from the transfer case to the pinion yoke on the front axle is the driveshaft. Yours is a double carden style which we typically call a CV style. I am posting this as I hope to help clarify a little.

The cross member being bent forward like it is, will decrease the clearance at the driveshaft area. Since it is bent forward, it is closer to a lower part of the driveshaft tube. I can't say how much of a difference this makes for sure.
Raising the crossmember will help the angle that the front driveshaft is operating at, but could possibly make it more difficult to get clearance for the driveshaft tube when the suspension droops. This may require cutting and welding on the crossmember to give the room necessary.
Raising the crossmember will make the angle of the rear driveshaft worse and can potentially cause vibrations depending on how things end up with the angles at the U-joints.
And I believe that @sweetk30 and @Wes Harden are saying that the crossmember should be bolted directly against the bottom of the lower frame rail flange, and the bolt holes should be centered in the frame flange, not towards the edges. Having it bolted against the frame lessens the leverage that it has on the frame to help prevent twisting and bending as much as possible. You can probably bend the frame back to mostly straight if you use a large Cresent wrench, when you have the crossmember down.
Unfortunately, putting the bolt holes in the center of the frame flange won't be easy because of the existing holes. Someone should have pulled the frame in when they installed that crossmember. These frames flex a good amount. It isn't uncommon to have to use an alignment bar to put the first bolt in after pulling the rails towards the center of the truck.

 

[frankin5]

@RSAP Have you replaced the rear mount to tcase, looks a little suspect in your picture.