Here's a pictorial diary of the crossover install.
Starting here, regular push-pull D60, ORD 4-5" lift.
Sheet metal cap on passenger side, will go to driver's side:
Push-pull components on driver's side with dropped pitman.
Remove sheet metal thing, install studs and put some RTV to keep the grease in.
Steering arm installed. ORD instructions call for 110 ft-lbs with oiled threads, loosen and tighten 3-5 time. 110 doesn't feel like much here.
Here's the 2WD steering box I ordered from Benchworks with 14:1 ratio.
Here's the bare frame after 4WD box removed. Sort of a pain to remove by yourself. I wired it up before undoing the last bolt, but it still fell a little. Oh well, it's just a core now. You can see the ORD brace through the holes. Notice it's not lined up. This made the one man install of the new box extra painful.
Much cussing later, the new box is installed. This was by far the most painful part. The ORD brace is in the way and doesn't line up right, so it made it that much harder to get everything started (not blaming ORD, I probably drilled the hole slightly off way back when I installed it). The paint in the threads of the new box didn't help either. I ended up running a tap through them to get the bolts to start more easily. The trick for the one man install was to put a punch through one of the holes to hang the box on while the others were started.
When the old hoses were remove, both o-rings were destroyed. I thought this would be a good time to replace the hoses, but nobody stocks the return hose. Oreilley and Autozone sell bulk hose for the return, when what I needed was the metal fitting. I bought a pressure line but ended up just replacing the o-rings for now since getting a wrench on the back of the pump looked nearly impossible.
Once the box is in, the pitmann arm is attached to ~190 ft-lbs. I had to order the 7/8"-14 nut since it didn't come with the steering box or the ORD kit.
Attaching the draglink is it after that, which is a piece of cake. The only complication is that I couldn't just rotate it to align the steering wheel since it hits the crossmember. I was able to make it squeak past by jacking up the drivers side. One rotation worked well enough in my case.
That's it. So far I like the feel of the steering much better. At this point everything is new from the column to the wheels. I've only driven it around the block a few times so far.
By the way, the system took about 36 oz of power steering fluid, which was more than I expected (extra trips). Only start the truck for a few seconds the first few times because the reservoir evacuates quickly. It's easy to overfill the res, and if you do when no more is needed, it'll quickly puke out around the cap...
Starting here, regular push-pull D60, ORD 4-5" lift.
Sheet metal cap on passenger side, will go to driver's side:
Push-pull components on driver's side with dropped pitman.
Remove sheet metal thing, install studs and put some RTV to keep the grease in.
Steering arm installed. ORD instructions call for 110 ft-lbs with oiled threads, loosen and tighten 3-5 time. 110 doesn't feel like much here.
Here's the 2WD steering box I ordered from Benchworks with 14:1 ratio.
Here's the bare frame after 4WD box removed. Sort of a pain to remove by yourself. I wired it up before undoing the last bolt, but it still fell a little. Oh well, it's just a core now. You can see the ORD brace through the holes. Notice it's not lined up. This made the one man install of the new box extra painful.
Much cussing later, the new box is installed. This was by far the most painful part. The ORD brace is in the way and doesn't line up right, so it made it that much harder to get everything started (not blaming ORD, I probably drilled the hole slightly off way back when I installed it). The paint in the threads of the new box didn't help either. I ended up running a tap through them to get the bolts to start more easily. The trick for the one man install was to put a punch through one of the holes to hang the box on while the others were started.
When the old hoses were remove, both o-rings were destroyed. I thought this would be a good time to replace the hoses, but nobody stocks the return hose. Oreilley and Autozone sell bulk hose for the return, when what I needed was the metal fitting. I bought a pressure line but ended up just replacing the o-rings for now since getting a wrench on the back of the pump looked nearly impossible.
Once the box is in, the pitmann arm is attached to ~190 ft-lbs. I had to order the 7/8"-14 nut since it didn't come with the steering box or the ORD kit.
Attaching the draglink is it after that, which is a piece of cake. The only complication is that I couldn't just rotate it to align the steering wheel since it hits the crossmember. I was able to make it squeak past by jacking up the drivers side. One rotation worked well enough in my case.
That's it. So far I like the feel of the steering much better. At this point everything is new from the column to the wheels. I've only driven it around the block a few times so far.
By the way, the system took about 36 oz of power steering fluid, which was more than I expected (extra trips). Only start the truck for a few seconds the first few times because the reservoir evacuates quickly. It's easy to overfill the res, and if you do when no more is needed, it'll quickly puke out around the cap...
