New Steering setup, need your help

[Root Moose]

Newbie type questions, but when you say angle of the track bar and draglink, what angle should I be measuring from? Or basically should they just be the same parallel angle no matter what?

Thanks and I will try what you said.

Chris

They should be parallel to one and other and ideally as close to parallel with the ground as possible.

A lot of factory designs have them set to a few degrees above the horizon. The theory is that during suspension bump through braking, whatever the relative distance at the horizon does not change much and is not transfered through to the steering wheel/chassis.

When you get above 10-15 degrees you will start experiencing bump steer, the higher the angle relative to the ground the more you will feel it.

HTH

 

[Jeepin Jason]

That steering setup is junk. That's Rusty's original design, I ran it for a while, 'til I figured out the dead-spot issue. I've still got all the parts laying around actually, because the design was so bad I couldn't bring myself to pawn it off, er, sell it, to anyone else.

The real problem is that bend TRE on the passenger side. That, coupled with the draglink angle, cause the rotation in the tierod which causes the deadspot. You can replace the dustboot on the passenger knuckle with a bunch of washers to shim the TRE in place. That will cut down the rotation, but it's a total ghetto fix, and the TRE probably won't last long once you do that. That's what Rusty originally recommended to me. I had a pic of it online at one point, looks like I took it down though.

Best thing I can recommend... go back to the stock steering setup. That's what I did and it worked waaay better.

 

[Drunk tank]

Seriously? That's the only thing I can do?

yep... I built my own inverted t setup... no solution.

 

[gearwhine]

A lot of factory designs have them set to a few degrees above the horizon. The theory is that during suspension bump through braking, whatever the relative distance at the horizon does not change much and is not transfered through to the steering wheel/chassis.

When you get above 10-15 degrees you will start experiencing bump steer, the higher the angle relative to the ground the more you will feel it.

HTH

I can believe you know what you're talking about, but that's confusing as all hell, I don't even think I understand it.

are you just saying.... the less of an angle, the less horizontal distance change during bump, meaning less movement put into the steering wheel???

To answer the question about where to measure, measure from bolt to bolt on the track bar, and then the same on the draglink. If there is a large difference, then that sucks. For parallelism, just look at it. Both need to be good in Order to get little bump steer.

 

[Root Moose]

I can believe you know what you're talking about, but that's confusing as all hell, I don't even think I understand it.

are you just saying.... the less of an angle, the less horizontal distance change during bump, meaning less movement put into the steering wheel???

To answer the question about where to measure, measure from bolt to bolt on the track bar, and then the same on the draglink. If there is a large difference, then that sucks. For parallelism, just look at it. Both need to be good in Order to get little bump steer.

Yes, that is kinda confusing now that I re-read it.

1.) drag link and Panhard must be parallel to one another.

2.) Drag link should be as close to parallel to ground as possible.

For the sake of what you need to know that is pretty much it.

Now, the other fluff I was talking about....

a.) find a blank wall in the room you are currently sitting.

b.) find the center

c.) take/imagine a peice of string that is puled out from the center till it is tight.

d.) make string parallel to ground.

e.) mark the othe end point of the string on the wall. You should have a line parallel with the ground at this point.

Ok, that's the setup, now the fun...

i.) make the end of the string move down (following the circle, taut string) a few degrees below the horizon.

ii.) Notice the distance along the horizon that the end point of the string has travelled.

iii.) move the string down a few more degrees (say 10 more). notice the difference along the horison the string has travelled.

See how as the string moves "down" through the arc of the circle the distance along the horizon gets larger?

Now imagine this string is your drag link. The steeper the angle, the more the end point moves along the horizon for the same amount of suspension travel.

Factory setups use a slightly up angle so that there is minimal horizontal change (i.e. bump steer) with hitting bumps and/or braking so that the vehicle feels more stable. If the draglink travel from slightly down to slightly up (above horizon) the same amount of horizontal change is in play, as oppposed to a huge deflection.

Take a look at this image:

http://moose.ca/albums/Web_Threads_NAXJA/steering_wheel_radius.gif

Note the difference between "a" and "b".

HTH

 

[flexj]

Like Andy said. put a jam nut on the tre at the pitman arm and tighten the crap out of all the rest. That was the biggest complaint I had on my Rusty's otk, the jam nuts kept coming loose. If they are loose, the links will roll. If they are tight, it won't roll as bad, might even be acceptable. So before you throw the whole thing away, do as stated above and see how much/if it helps.If you still don't like it, do what I did and sell it to your brother :laugh3:

 

[JnJ]

You could do something like this;
http://www.vintagebronco.com/newberry/pages/tech/tre/tre2.html
It will at least move the tierod over the knuckle and reduce your draglink angle some. I did it on my 44.

 

[xjj33p3r]

Now, what is bumpsteer exactly? I heard someone bring it up, but I've never been able to figure out what it is.

 

[lazyxj]

JnJ

How are the the Chevy TREs working. Any problems or bad habits?

 

[JnJ]

I don't have the jeep any more. But they did fine while I had it. There was still a small dead spot in the steering.

 

[Root Moose]

Now, what is bumpsteer exactly? I heard someone bring it up, but I've never been able to figure out what it is.

It's basically when you hit a bump the steering wheel moves.

If you look at the post with the talk about the circle/radius/draglink and think about what that difference in the horizontal plane does (i.e. move the steering knuckle) you'll see what bump steer is.

 

[Jeepin Jason]

It's basically when you hit a bump the steering wheel moves.

That's a bit misleading. Most people that that if/when the hit a bump/hole in the road with a tire and the vehicle kinda jerks to that side that that's bumpsteer, and that's not bumpsteer.

Bumpsteer occurs when the whole front suspension compresses and/or rebounds, like when you go over a dip or whoop in the road. Bumpsteer can be noticed going over a speed bump, or if you've got excessive brake-dive.

You can actually check for it sitting still in your driveway by bouncing the front end up and down with the motor running. If your steering wheel rotates back and forth on its own when you do that, that's bumpsteer.

 

[xjj33p3r]

Well, it seems like I have bumpsteer.... that's a bummer. What can I do to alleviate this "problem"... It seems like more of an annoyance than anything else, or are there any mechanical problems that can arrise from this?

 

[Jeepin Jason]

what's your steering setup?

 

[xjj33p3r]

As of right now it's stock. I know I know, I was supposed to have upgraded all of it this summer, but I was out of the country, and my dad had it all replaced with stock parts. About the only thing that's not stock is the RE tierod. Pitman arm is also stock. Oh, my trac bar and trac bar bracket are both Rusty's.

 

[Jared]

THERE IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO TO LESSEN THE DEAD SPOT.

Ok, this is simple. You turn the TRE's in the tie rod so that they are tilted opposite eachother. So, you'd roll one forward and the other backward. Don't completely max them out, but almost. This way, the tie rod can barely roll forward or backward without one TRE or the other stopping it. Try it!

Jaredatriot:

 

[Pete M]

THERE IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO TO LESSEN THE DEAD SPOT.

Ok, this is simple. You turn the TRE's in the tie rod so that they are tilted opposite eachother. So, you'd roll one forward and the other backward. Don't completely max them out, but almost. This way, the tie rod can barely roll forward or backward without one TRE or the other stopping it. Try it!

Jaredatriot:

I did this with my ford axle (stock Bronco tierod with modified Bronco draglink) and it helped quite a bit.
Jeep on!
--Pete