ORD Crossover question

[rebelgregory]

My ORD steering arm is the same as for hi-steer with two TRE holes. From the pics I could find, the drag link goes to the hole nearest to the front bumper. Pretty sure that's right.

So question is: if running crossover, but not hi-steer, which hole on the steering arm does the drag link go in? Mine is in the front hole right now, but if I put it in the hole closest to the spindle, theoretically my steering would be a little quicker with a tighter steering radius (unless limited by knuckle stops).

Any thoughts?

.

 

[munepit]

It goes in the hole closest to the bumper. If it was in the back hole, It wouldn't turn as tight.


Edit: I was wrong

 

[Hogback Fabrication]

Draglink goes in the furthest forward hole.

Using the hole at the back for the draglink will mean sharper and quicker turning, but you lose a bunch of steering power because of the shorter lever arm.

 

[munepit]

What if you have hydro assist?

 

[rebelgregory]

Pretty much what I was thinking. I was also concerned that the other hole would put the drag link at a non-perpendicular angle to the pitman and it might turn hard one way and easy the other.

Anyway, thanks for the responses. Logic wins again.

 

[rebelgregory]

No hydro for me, but interesting question.

 

[Stephen]

Part of the awesome of crossover steering is that the angles are all much more gentle and angle changes are thus less important. So little changes like moving the axle forward and backward or using different holes in the steering arm make little angle changes that don't really matter much.
But!

My gut feel for using the back hole on the arm to speed up the steering is that I think there are better ways to do it. You do lose leverage on the steering system so you lose power and gain speed to the tune of a little over 1/3rd. If you got really serious about tuning steering stops, ujoint and knuckle clearance and tire clearance you might be able to use the full box and get up to around the 50 degree steering mark that some comp guys run. Then you'd use hydro assist to make up the power and deal with a bunch of really high flow stuff to keep up with it at any kind of speed. I think you might be better off using a steering quickener to speed up the input shaft if you want to make the system react quicker but again this gives you the ability to demand much more speed from the system and you'll need some serious high flow pump/line/etc work.

In the grand scheme though, it won't hurt to play with it. Just understand that you're losing power and could put a lot of stress on the pump and keep the wheel centered so that you're not ever driving at high speed on the faster portion of the variable ratio box.

The variable boxes are slower in the middle and faster on the fringes of the steering travel. This makes them nice to drive on the highway without feeling twitchy while having the faster ratio available so that you work the wheel less in a parking lot. A truck with a tight steering system will get twitchy on the highway if the wheel isn't centered and that would only be worse with a faster steering system.

 

[rebelgregory]

Yeah, mine is only going to be on moderate/expedition trails. If people had had only 'awesome' results, I might give it a shot. As it is, I'm good using the farthest point in the arm. I just got to thinking about it while it was going together. Thought I'd ask.

Did I mention it's pretty awesome to have the vendor on the forum? Thanks.

.