Steering...high steer, assist, full hydro

[Goatman]

Finishing the buggy build includes doing the front suspension, including the steering which I'm having problems with. It looks like others had steering issues on our recent JV trip, so let's talk about it. One debate is whether to stick to hydro assist or go full hydro, and if full hydro, what parts to do it. If hydro assist, what parts to make the damn thing work right.

In my situation, I have the Tera 60 front 60 with Tera knuckles which use D44 high steer arms. Right now there is one high steer arm on the pass knuckle for the drag link and the tie rod is on the lower normal knuckle mount. This has to go, since I bent the crap out of the tie rod it needs to go to the higher position. On the yellow XJ I used rod ends which made fabbing up steering pretty simple. This rig has 1 ton TRE's and I'd like to keep them, plus I have a nice aluminum drag link and tie rod.

So, my first question is what high steer arms do you guys have that use the 1 ton TRE's?

Second question is thoughts on the feasibility of going full hydro with D44 high steer arms. I'm not afraid of the Tera knuckle, it's pretty stout, but I do wonder about those three studs on a flat top knuckle holding full hydro.

 

[Ghost]

One thing I have learned is that some of the arms have one hole and others have 2. You really want the two hole arm and you want the first hole far enough so that it is not too close to the ather axle components. The HT ones on ebay are nice and stout but imho the holes are too close to the knuckle and the arm is nto long enough.

 

[Goatman]

The only consideration for the hole location in the arm is to allow full steering movement........so the pitman arm can have it's full swing without bottoming the knuckle against the stops. If I used rod ends, I would use an arm with one hole and do an inverted T, but with the 1 ton TRE's I would like to use an arm (pass side) with two holes, one for the drag link and one for the tie rod. I'm curious what others have done when using the TRE's. I have no worries about clearance against the coils since I'm running coilovers.

 

[vetteboy]

The only consideration for the hole location in the arm is to allow full steering movement........so the pitman arm can have it's full swing without bottoming the knuckle against the stops. If I used rod ends, I would use an arm with one hole and do an inverted T, but with the 1 ton TRE's I would like to use an arm (pass side) with two holes, one for the drag link and one for the tie rod. I'm curious what others have done when using the TRE's. I have no worries about clearance against the coils since I'm running coilovers.

Are you concerned about keeping correct Ackerman angle?

 

[Goatman]

Are you concerned about keeping correct Ackerman angle?

Not very.........but why?

 

[vetteboy]

Not very.........but why?

Just curious. There's two guys I go wheelin with pretty regularly, and one of them has traditional Ackerman, while the other set up reverse Ackerman by mistake. He put his tie rod and hi-steer arms behind the axle (just flipped around standard D60 arms) and made it get all wacky. He's got about 1.5x the turning radius of the other guy. He always bitched about his turning radius, and within seconds of driving it I noticed exactly what was happening.

It's just been something I'm always aware of, ever since working on the mini-baja project at school and stuff. If it's something you wanted to include, it'll influence the position of the tie-rod hole vs. drag link hole on the steering arm is all I was getting at.

I probably wouldn't run both the drag link and tie rod on the same D44 arm, IMO. I'd do full hydro if that were the only other alternative. With good quality studs and tapered nuts/washers you could probably make it last but "making something last" is not what I prefer to think about when wheelin.

 

[Goatman]

Would Ackerman angle cause a 50% loss of turning radius??

I mostly thought that excessive scrub could hurt traction as the front tires are forced to slip a little, but that only would happen at near full lock, and if both tires were gripping on a fairly even surface. There are so many variables when crawling....spinning tires under power, one tire climbing while turning sharp, barely crawling over a technical spot, barely gripping on a climb but the tires are only turned slightly......that it's hard for me to think how often that excess scrub would really hurt you. It might, just hard to think about.

I guess if I had the choice to build it with or without proper Ackerman I'd build it with, but other design considerations would take priority. I think tie rod clearance would be more important, meaning that both tie rod and drag link should be above the arm. While I have some understanding of what Ackerman angle does, I don't have a good understanding of how to get it.

 

[vetteboy]

As long as you've got some form of it, it's usually not noticeable on a trail rig. Having a spooled/locked front kills it more. In my friend's case, he's got reverse ackerman, which means the outside wheel is trying to turn more than the inside wheel (the opposite of how you're supposed to orient the wheels for a turn). This coupled with a welded front end means you'll continue to go straight for a little while before it even thinks about turning. Not to mention the huge amount of scrub he has tends to roll inner beads pretty frequently.

How to get it...picture your vehicle from the top. Draw a line through the tie rod connection and the ball joint pivot, on each side. For 100% true Ackerman, this line should intersect exactly in the center of the rear axle. This is why most steering arms put the tie rod connection further outboard than the balljoint/kingpin (drag link doesn't factor into this). Takes a little bit of visualizing, but I think you'll see it enough to know whether you're going the right way or not.

edit for diagram:

 

[Goatman]

I see that a couple of companies offer an upgrade from 9/16 studs to 5/8 studs. That should be a decent increase in strength, and it wouldn't be hard to drill and tap the 9/16 holes in the knuckle out to 5/8. So, that's one option. I see many people who've gone to full hydro say they are so glad they did it, yet I hear of other people talking about slow steering response and a lack of feel at speed.

Funny thing is that all along I figured on having good handling at speed, being able to jump it and haul ass, a super stout cage to handle a roll at speed..........but I tried it with water in the front tires and I really like it that way. It worked so well on the rocks that now I wonder if I even want to haul ass and jump it and stuff, or just keep it set up to work really well on rocks and be happy with that. I can still run pretty fast, faster than most, but the downside of full hydro at speed may not even be an issue with me any more. I've never really seriously considered full hydro, but I have to decide how to rebuild the front end and I only want to do it once. Even with hydro assist I have to move the ram to accomodate moving the tie rod on top of the arms.

So, I'm considering my options.

 

[FarmerMatt]

but I tried it with water in the front tires and I really like it that way.

You were running water in the tires? How much did you fill them?

 

[Jeff 98XJ WI]

In my situation, I have the Tera 60 front 60 with Tera knuckles which use D44 high steer arms. Right now there is one high steer arm on the pass knuckle for the drag link and the tie rod is on the lower normal knuckle mount. This has to go, since I bent the crap out of the tie rod it needs to go to the higher position. On the yellow XJ I used rod ends which made fabbing up steering pretty simple. This rig has 1 ton TRE's and I'd like to keep them, plus I have a nice aluminum drag link and tie rod.

So, my first question is what high steer arms do you guys have that use the 1 ton TRE's?

You talk of 1 ton tie rod ends, but as I'm sure you are aware, there are many different 1 ton tie rod ends. Crash and Jes and many others are using 1 ton tie rod ends, but the one on the passengers knuckle is designed to mount a steering stabilizer to it. They ream that hole to accept another tie rod end and then mount the drag link to that. It works well if the drag link is close to parrallel to the tie rod.

I'm using custom D44 high steer arms with two holes on the passengers side arm. The drag link attaches to the inner hole set to a distance to match the swing of the pitman arm and then the tie rod mounts further out on the steering arms. It works ok, but can have clearance issues at full stuff because the drag link is crossing over the tie rod. Just some thoughts. Jeff

 

[ashmanjeepxj]

goatman

for sure you will be most happy with a double ended full hydro ram over the single ended ram. Mine feals good at high speeds and I run the single ended ram.

At low RPMs if you use a stock PS pump you may have some steering bind with assist or full hydro, this is common if you dont run a smaller pulley. I need to do this eventually.

I went cheap with the single ended ram, It works good enough to not want to pay for the more expensive double ended ram. It what all my buddies run so we have spare parts.

I run 1.5in 250wall DOM tierod with 7/8-18 TRES the short ones, I run them on the d60 knuckles but mounted top down. I drilled and falred them to come in top-down rather then down-up factory. It gives me 3in height over stock but stock steerign geometry and good strength. I wont trust king pin d60 high steer arms with 4 bolts, I wouldent trust 3 d44 studs either. ARP studs would be your best bet though. Ive seen many stock d44 knuckle survive but the studs do not.

My vote is less clearance but better reliability, no high steer arms, full hydro.

 

[Goatman]

You talk of 1 ton tie rod ends, but as I'm sure you are aware, there are many different 1 ton tie rod ends. Crash and Jes and many others are using 1 ton tie rod ends, but the one on the passengers knuckle is designed to mount a steering stabilizer to it. They ream that hole to accept another tie rod end and then mount the drag link to that. It works well if the drag link is close to parrallel to the tie rod.

I'm using custom D44 high steer arms with two holes on the passengers side arm. The drag link attaches to the inner hole set to a distance to match the swing of the pitman arm and then the tie rod mounts further out on the steering arms. It works ok, but can have clearance issues at full stuff because the drag link is crossing over the tie rod. Just some thoughts. Jeff

Jeff, that's what I figured out, some are running one hole in the pass side with that combo TRE. I won't do that, don't want it to bend, and don't like the drag link pushing that way on the tie rod. I'm looking to do it like you did, with the drag link on the inside and tie rod on the outside, and it looks like I would need custom arms like you did. Who made the arms for you? I won't have a problem with the drag link hitting the tie rod since my tie rod is in front of the pitman arm.

 

[vetteboy]

I run 1.5in 250wall DOM tierod with 7/8-18 TRES the short ones, I run them on the d60 knuckles but mounted top down. I drilled and falred them to come in top-down rather then down-up factory. It gives me 3in height over stock but stock steerign geometry and good strength.

What 60 are you running?

Mine's a Dodge and it had the holes set up to go top-down from the factory.

 

[Goatman]

That's how mine is now, but it's no good for the type of wheeling I do. I bent the tie rod on the first trail the first day. Clearance is the priority, then build it strong enough. If the tie rod is bent you already have a problem. I'll at least go to the 5/8 studs, and since it looks like I have to get custom arms done anyway, I may go for four or five studs rather than the three. The Tera 60 knuckle has a bigger flat spot on top than a D44 knuckle, so there's room for another stud or two, if someone will make an arm for it.

 

[Goatman]

You were running water in the tires? How much did you fill them?

The fronts are half full. Seemed to work well, I only tried it because I got them that way and figured I'd never do it otherwise. Now I don't know if I want to change it.

 

[Kaczman]

Richard- Go full hydro, you won't be sorry. I'm running a Howe pump and pulley with Station's D.E. cylinder and orbital valve and have been very happy with it. The only time the steering feels slow is at idle which shouldn't be an issue when running at speed.

When I hit a gulley on the way to Die Trying, I broke the high steer arm (Poison Spyder) and sheared the front 5/8" stud. The arm broke at the second stud, but the D-44 knuckle had no damage. I know the are better D-44 high steer arm designs but I don't know who else uses the larger studs.

-Jon

 

[vetteboy]

What size was the tie rod you bent?

 

[XJ_ranger]

I know the D44 dedenbear flat top kuckles use a 4th stud... might look into finding arms that are made for thoes knuckles and use a 4th stud in your arms?

http://www.dedenbear.com/TXToffroad.htm

and I know that Blue Torch Fab makes arms with 2 holes on the passenger side to do exactly what you are talking about... though a quick check on their webpage doesnt show 4 stud steering arms...

 

[xrayjeeper83]

I was wondering with the high steer, does the scout high steer knuckles bolt right up to a GW dana 44????


Andrew