Well Ive gotten a little bit done over the past few weeks.
I was finally able to get my steering problems out of the way. First, I checked my toe and found out that it was toed in 3/4"! So I (properly) set the toe to just a hair over 1/16th. This alone made a huge difference on the road and kept the steering from doing its own thing while on the road. Now it tracks straight and doesn't try to throw me all over the road when I hit bumps or take turns.
I had been trying to figure out how to keep my tie rod from rolling, which was causing death wobble and some slop in the steering. I tried a few different ideas but in the end heres what I ended up doing:
I welded the jam nut to the threaded bung in the tie rod, and then tack welded the joint to the jam nut. On one side, I rolled the joint forward:
And on the other side I welded it up with the joint rolled back, thus keeping the tie rod from rolling:
Now here is where I am stumped. The first time I tacked the joints, I locked one joint forward and one back like in the pics. I took it for a test drive, and when I got back I had some free play/roll in the tie rod - enough to give me a shimmy when I hit a bump just right at around 30 mph. So I cut off the passenger side tack weld, readjusted it and welded it back up. No wobble.
Now almost a month later, I have a good amount of wobble in the steering again because the tie rod has some roll in it (again)... Which doesn't make any sense because it seems to me that there is no physically possible way for it to loosen up like this. The entire tie rod is now one solid piece because it it welded together from joint to joint, so the only way for it to loosen up (to allow wobble back and forth) would be for something to bend/twist or for a weld to break. The welds are all still holding, and I cant find any signs of bending, twisting, or fatigue. Any ideas here?
The next thing I did was cut up my shackle relocation brackets and paint them up. When I had the shackle at a nice angle (~45*), I backed down my driveway and the shackles kicked back and sat flat against the bracket, pointing straight back. So I adjusted the angle so it was more vertical so it doesn't kick back any more. I talked to Steve at Golden State Motorsports about it when I was in there a few weeks ago, and he recommended putting on a longer shackle. Lucky me, I still have 2" (2.5"?) RC lift shackles sitting in my garage. Now I just need to get some lower springs or take a leaf or two out of my current pack so it will sit lower in the rear.
Heres a pic of my crappy current shackle angle.
Then I had my buddy weld up my frame stiffeners, then I primed and painted them in the parking lot of Sacramento State so I could go wheeling that night.
Heres a few shots my buddy took.
Poser shots FTW!!
