Anyone with weld in ORD brace...question for you

[90K5]

I put mine in around Christmas...also replaced the steering gear box, and all my tie rod ends are good and ball joints as far as I know are good, and i have the stering box brace as well, and a 2" drop pitamn arm. my steering wheel's center still changes a lot. It will be a few degrees to the right, and then if i nudge a curb, it will go a few degrees to the left...the truck obviously did this before, just like they all seem to...We welded up all the cracks in the frame, but it seems like the weld in brace should eliminate pretty much all of the frame flex in the trcuk...do your trucks do this too? Any ideas would be great, thanks. Oh yeah, the truck tracks pretty straight down the road no matter where the steering wheel is.

 

[tRustyK5]

Might be some slop in the box itself. Even with a cracked frame my steering wheel center never really changed. I'm assuming it will be tighter than it was now that the frame repair has been installed (steering box brace is going in soon too)

Also, have you checked draglink ends and tie rod ends? The only time I ever had vague steering and a center that moved around was with a really bad drag link end.

Rene

 

[Sandman]

I would go with the bad steering part too.

 

[imiceman44]

Do you have crossover steering?
If you do, the ORD brace doesn't do much to help.
You need a different type of brace, something that will control sideways motion.
If you have a heavy bumper that is strong enough, triangulate it with a brace like the original on the stock bumper, but thicker and stronger of course and you will have your brace. /forums/images/graemlins/thumb.gif

 

[Seventy4Blazer]

Ball joints.
mine would move about 3/8 inch. scared the hell out of me when i saw it. im glad the truck was out of commission, but i had been driving it like that for a long while.
Grant

 

[Grim-Reaper]

Well this is a ORD brace.

It bolts in and does not weld in. It triangulates off the front cross member. It workes extremely well and I highly recomend this as a way to help correct the steering wheel recenter problem.
This is a FRAME PATCH, REPAIR PLATE, CRACKED FRAME REPAIR PATCH, Weld-in Frame Repair kit as sold by ORD.

It is NOT a brace and does nothing to fix the frame rails from flexing. I think you may have the two confused as to what they do.

 

[tRustyK5]

The weld in kit does triangulate the frame to the front crossmember with the underside plate...but the bolt in brace does it much more effectively./forums/images/graemlins/thumb.gif

Rene

 

[90K5]

yeah i have both of those...wasn't thinking when i said brace. Now that someone mentioned the bumper bracket keeping the frame from flexing...my bumper is bent a little and i took that bracket off. Maybe bending something back and putting the bracket on would help?

 

[imiceman44]

It will make a difference if you have cross over, if not then no it will not make a difference.
The sideways motion would be affected by this angled brace on the bumper not the twisting motion from the original steering design.
/forums/images/graemlins/thumb.gif

 

[FWP]

Just curious, are you running a swaybar, or is it disconnected?

 

[90K5]

Yeah, but I made some drop brackets for it that drop it about 2", they bolt to the frame, not the spring plate...I"m kinda thinking the swayabr might be causing it, might disconnect it and see

 

[FWP]

The reason I asked was I have the same problem (also have good suspension parts in place, as you do, as well as both bolt-on and weld on frame braces). Got to looking at things under my K5, and came up with.... The only thing keeping the axle under the frame in the same place is the springs/ spring bushings. So the axle has to be shifting slightly left or right in relation to the frame, which causes steering wheel center to be off. I dismissed it as inherent. Keep in mind, I'm running a heavy 60 and crossover.

 

[90K5]

Mine was really bad one day, turned out it was really windy that day and i didn't think aobut that