A possible alternative to cross-over..."Cross Back?"

[clancy84]

So pretty much it seems we have two main options for out trucks as far as steering. 1.) the factory set up. 2.) a cross over arangement. If you want to do some hardcore wheeling the factory set up can be a real pain. once the axle starts to move you can get into situations where you can really turn the wheels on the truck. So most guys go for a cross over arrangement. I won't go into what that is becuase it has been covered many times on other posts. so what if you can't really get a cross over steering arrangement under your truck?
In my case, I have a 6.2 Diesel with a banks turbo kit. I really really like this motor. The problem is there is a cross over tube that runs right in front on the engine cross member...right where you would want the drag link to go. I don't want to mess around with custom plumbing. in a nut shell it would be a huge excersize to get a working cross over set up.

so heres my idea.(the theory) What if you were to run a long drag link back along the frame rail say to the transmission cross member, or maybe further back. Have the other end connect to a strong pivot assembly, and then run it forward to the steering arm.you would get the same benifit as the cross over steering, but it all stays on the same side of the truck.

I spent some time on my lunch to draw up some simple diagrams. and explanations.
Diagram 1: This is the factory set up more or less.
Diagram 2: shows how when the arm drops it effectively becomes shorter.
Diagram 3: is a rough sketch of what im talking about.

I have thought a lot more about this in detail, but i wanted to throw the concept out there and see if im missing something big, or if you think it might work.

--Scott

 

[jhellwig]

How are you going to keep the tire from hitting your draglink comming back to the axel?

 

[Hossbaby50]

Are you running 52" springs up front or something? My truck has a 4" lift and crossover and the draglink drops right in the gap in the middle of the crossmember. It is nowhere near the front of the engine crossmember.

Harley

 

[cybrfire]

Wouldn't your steering input end up backwards to the desired direction of turn? Or am I picturing what you have in mind wrong?

OK, maybe not> My steering box has been off for so long I can't even picture it.

 

[sled_dog]

Wouldn't your steering input end up backwards to the desired direction of turn? Or am I picturing what you have in mind wrong?

OK, maybe not> My steering box has been off for so long I can't even picture it.

You are picturing it the sameway I do.

Also, now you have a setup that is susceptable to a big force in a Chevy. Frame Flex. Frame flex would likely cause bump steer I'd say. That and with the long links going along the frame, don't you think you'd hit them on rocks? Also, how would you run that passed the tire and not hit the tire when turned to full left lock?

Crossover is really not an expensive or bad option. Being different is interesting, but often a waste of time(though I do personally get a good bit of enjoyment from being different).

 

[big83chevy4x4]

if you move it toward the center, it would be less likely to hit the tire. also it would be alot higher than the driveshaft so i think clearing the rocks or whatever is not a problem.

i don't think youd have to go all the way to the tranny crossmember, maybe just to the shackle mount or body mount. i think what you would need to keep from reversing is to make an arm that pivots at one end and has 2 tapered hole in the other for both draglink ends to go. one thing would be that the steering would be faster than stock (less turns of the wheel to turn tires same amount). this can create problems in itself, not to mention you would be able to turn farther both ways.

what ever you do, lets not see this on the scary steering pages.

 

[clancy84]

the cross over pipe from the drivers side bank of cylinders goes basically straight down from the # 3 cylinder makes a 90 degree turn and then runs forward along the pan, below the engine cross member, then it makes another 90 and runs along the front of the motor basically under the pullies and then up into the turbo. you can deal with the steering direction problem at your pivot point. see diagram 1 you can (i belive anyway) flip the pitman arm around 180 and run it to a push-pull pivot. or you can leave the arm in its stock position and run both drag links to a common pivot point on one side of a pivot. as stated you could mess around with thier location in relation to the center of the pivot and get an effective faster or slower steering response.

As far as tire interference, I honestly hadn't thought about that, so i went down to the shop and checked it out. that situation looks like it depends on the tire/wheel combo. i put a 38 X 12.5 on a rim that had a lot of back spacing, on the hub and turned it full left. it didn't look like it would clear, you could maybe route the tie rod on real close under the frame and have it jog over a small amount to catch the steering arm, but it looked like it would be pretty tricky. but when i grabbed one of my 36 X 14.5 TSL's on a rim with maybe 4 inches of back spacing, it looked like thier was a lot of room to make something work, this is also accounting for suspension articulation.

don't worry about me actually trying this any time soon, i was just throwing the idea out there.

--Scott

 

[moturbopar]

would something like this work this is looking from the front (just messing around, havnt done any measuring to see if anything will hit). the pink and dark blue tie rods are supposed to be behind the crossmember and runs under the oilpan on a small block it would require a custom built idler arm and will require a different pitman arm. The light blue is the factory tie rod infront of the axle. Im tired and dont feel like thinking about this anymore so if this is a stupid idea please let me know.

 

[az-k5]

That design can work. You will need a very solid pivot point on the passenger side of the frame. The force will also try to spread the frame rails apart on an already notorious weak frame. The cost of the extra 3 pivot points (one for the idler arm, and 2 for the extra idler drag link) and tube would almost break even with normal x-over. I also don't think you would actually hit the banks tube.

 

[Greg72]

Your "Diagram 3" is what I'm planning to build on my truck.

We talked about this same steering principle a while back in the CoG area when I was designing a front 4-Link suspension. There's no room for conventional steering setups (even crossover) due to the links, so someone suggested the setup you've drawn there.

The other option is to just mount the steering box under the driver's seat area to the frame. It gets rid of the extra linkages and still gives you that nice sweet geometry....the only problem is getting the steering wheel connected to the input side.





Might want to also check out the pics of the steering setup on Watson's Green Blazer (er, Buggy) on the ORD site. His steering box is mounted on the passenger side and uses an amazing combination of draglinks, idler arms, etc to acutate the steering.

There is also an old desert truck called "Fire Ant?" that supposedly used the steering-box-under-the-seat idea....but I've never found a good photo of it.

 

[Boondocks]

This is just off the top of my head and I haven't sketched it out, so forgive me this turns out to be a stupid idea.

What if your brought the box back to just behind the axle and rotated it so that the input shaft was at or near straight up and the pitman arm was straight down at neutral.

A multiple universal or CV joint could still be used to connect the column shaft.

Then the tie rod from the pitman would run across just over the pinion area of the diff and the other in front of the diff.

This should put the box very near the engine cross member, so there should be strength.

 

[badboyblazer]

cross back

Maybe I missed it, but did somebody mention bump steer with running the link back to the crossmember, as you compress the front springs the axle moves back, which would cause a huge problem with bump steer. However if you run a 4 link system this would work fine, But a standard crossover system should run under the cross member and should clear the banks kit, I did run a crossover/cross back system on my Chevy and it worked very well, but you will need a very strong pivot mount (extra plating) on the passenger frame rail to distribute the load, and you will need to tie the two frame rails togather so they dont spread, the factory rivets will not hold up for long.

 

[Geargrinder]

Did U see the 90's yellow sub in Petersons a few mo. ago? He was using a Dodge steering box, on the driverside, and that puts the pitman arm right ubove the front spring mount, but on it's side so to speak compeared to the chevy unit. They said that this all but eliminated bump steer, and it gave him a MUCH longer idler arm.

 

[kennyw]

The other option is to just mount the steering box under the driver's seat area to the frame. It gets rid of the extra linkages and still gives you that nice sweet geometry....the only problem is getting the steering wheel connected to the input side.

Look for a Chevy Van box.. They are nearly the same as the pickup/burb/K5 except the input points straight up. Then use the van linkage with the ujoints rather than rag joints.

 

[CyberSniper]

I investigated all forms of steering I could come up with.

I knocked it down to three.
1. Full hydro.
2. Standard crossover (not inverted-y or inverted-t).
3. Hybrid 2wd setup.

3. Basically, you kept the 2wd setup stock. You run the 2wd pitman arm and the 2wd idler arm and run the idler link along the crossmember. You then ran a draglink from the passenger side to the driver's side.

Even though I had pretty much all the parts to do it I still went with #2 on the list. I had a couple front ends off a 77C20 and an 87C10 laying around that had good joints. I wasn't 100% sure that the links wouldn't interfere with each other though (because you have to change "direction").