Quick lift/steering correction Q. 3" lift.

[Minnesota]

Hey guys,

Finishing up a 4" rear ORD shackle flip with 3" TC ez-rides up front. Ended up nice and level.

Came back from my alignment guys with a good alignment, but a bit of a wonky steering correction. Stock steering arm, with second-hand drop pitman purported to be 4", but have the feeling it's not that much. Dunno, first time in K5 world.

Ball joints all checked out fine, but drag links ran out of adjustment (adjusted in) to center the wheel (it's ending up just shy of 180* counter clock-wise of center). As you can also see, drag link is not horizontal (measuring at 10* up, towards the front of the vehicle).

Any thoughts or plan of attack? Aside from reminding me that my steering box is leaking...

 

[Hogback Fabrication]

Leave it. That is a 2" drop pitman arm and it works perfectly fine as steering correction for a 3" lift. The draglink doesn't need to be perfectly level, in fact, a little bit of angle like you have can make it drive quite nicely

 

[jms]

Draglink needs to be parallel to the leaf spring in order to prevent bump steer; this thing about the draglink needing to be horizontal on a Chevy stock push-pull steering is a myth.

I've had the ORD 3"TC front/shackle flip rear for a long time now. When I had the stock steering on the 10-bolt axle (it's a D60 w/ x-over now...), and using the 2" drop pitman arm, it was necessary to cut a little bit off one of the draglink ends. Otherwise, the draglink would be too long, causing the steering wheel to be off center.

 

[Minnesota]

Awesome. Thanks for the responses and info guys. Nipping a bit off the drag-link was what my alignment guy suggested (or pulling the steering wheel off and re-centering it).

Dave

 

[Minnesota]

Alrighty, so looks like one of the drag links needs to be trimmed to do this right. Have 2 turns of the wheel to the right, and 1.5 to the left.

After getting my search on, looks like a little goes a long way. Maybe knock of 1/2" of threads?

 

[jms]

1/2" is a bit much, 1/8" to 1/4" ought to do it as you'd want maximum thread engagement

Chris, I see you're reading this - I once cut a DLE with a hacksaw in Moab in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn...

 

[Minnesota]

1/2" is a bit much, 1/8" to 1/4" ought to do it as you'd want maximum thread engagement

Chris, I see you're reading this - I once cut a DLE with a hacksaw in Moab in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn...

Gotcha. As I was driving home got to worrying that 1/2" was a bit much.

And, yeah, Chris has been a great help as I wrap this stage of the project up. Both here and on the phone at ORD.

Thanks again guys.

 

[Minnesota]

Well, just took 1/4" off the link attached to the steering arm, and via eyeball on the jackstands, ended up bottoming the links against each other again. Took it for a quick trip around the block and just might be good. Reaaally close.

Next up is that leaky steering box and more importantly, the frame brace.

 

[Stephen]

I ran the 3" lift on my sub with no steering correction for a while and it did OK but had a bit of steer on brake dive so I knew it wasn't set up just right. Put the 2" drop pitman arm on there and it was as close to perfect as you can expect. I'm sure you'll like it.


Oh yeah, looks like a pretty nasty leak from that steering box, you should probably take a look at that.

 

[Minnesota]

Oh yeah... I've been looking at it...

Looking at it piss all over my new bits.

That thing is straight-up disrespectin' my pearly white Autozone Gabriels. And jeebus, and look at my oil filter... Thing looks like it re-entered when the Challenger blew up.

 

[Fred_M1010]

Oil leaks are good, they keep the rust at bay
At least that's what I've convinced myself, so I don't have to fix certain leaks