Help me feel stupid, crossover ideas.

[BamBamblazer]

Ok this may have been covered before and i just cant find it. But if i remember correctly doesnt ford and jeep use a set-up where the draglink heads to the pass. side and then connects to the tie-rod? I may be way off on this but it seems to me they do. IF i am right, wouldnt it be possible to do something like this with our trucks. This would totaly eliminate the need for the flat tops. I hope this all makes sence in your heads as mutch as it does in mine. Ok update, i was lookin at this scary spring setup and it has the steering set-up i was refering to. I relize that it would have to be done correctly but i thinks it would work!

 

[CyberSniper]

You could make it work if you notched your leaf spring.

Most of the Heep guys take one of our driver's side tie rods (the one the stabilizer goes through after ~1980) and ream it out to fit another TRE making it weak. Redneck inverted-T setup.

 

[AkMudr]

That would be an inverted T design you are thinking of. With trucks as heavy as ours, why put stress on one tie rod end by hooking another one to it?

I dunno whos truck that is in the above pic but MANNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!

 

[85burbanator]

totally diggin that suspesion.

 

[86chevybanshee]

did you get that picture from scarysteering.com?

if not some one should send it in

 

[stockk5]

holy dangerous truck batman.... i wouldnt want my truck to look anything like that.

 

[AkMudr]

Actually yes that pic is on scary steering.com. Good ole Ford!!

 

[sled_dog]

That is the problem with the setup. On compression it would be worse. By the by, I know the person who has that Ford, I took the picture, you can see my green 97 Chevy in the back.

 

[CyberSniper]

How come you let him do something like that? There is so much wrong with what's going on in that picture...

 

[6.2Blazer]

There are three basic problems with doing a setup like that:

1. draglink angle - with any amount of lift you will still have the draglink at a pretty good angle which leads to the potential of bumpsteer

2. clearance - good luck trying to keep the draglink from hitting the passenger side spring. Look at the scary steering picture again and visualize what would happen if he got rid of the 8" tall stack of cut off leaves...the draglink would probably being hitting the springs and there is no way he could turn

3. strength issues - besides just an extra force on the tie-rod or draglink, you are also applying a bending force because the drag link and tie rod are not parallel.

Several years ago a guy in our club tried to do this setup after swapping a Chevy 60 into the front of his Jeep....he had serious problems with all three issues shown above and is still running that setup today despite the fact all he needs to do is buy a frickin' steering arm.

 

[sled_dog]

How come you let him do something like that? There is so much wrong with what's going on in that picture...

Hes a big boy, I didn't let him do ****. He told me to stop by, I did and that was what I found. He was proud of it . After telling him in the nicest ways I could and giving him time he realized it was stupid and took all by I think 1 of those leaves out.

 

[84_Chevy_K10]

There is only one problem with this. You have 39.5" IROKs and a 10 bolt front axle. You need a Dana 60 a lot more than you need crossover steering. When you get your D60 it'll be a lot easier to do crossover because it bolts right on.