ChristianEwing
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2023
- Messages
- 55
I see what you're saying about the pitman arm now! That's only gonna net 1/4-3/8" difference, but I guess any little bit does help. If the tabs for the shortest tie rod from the pitman arm land on the side of the center link, its going to want to pivot up and down from the force being put on it from the box while turning unless it has some sort of keeper (wobble stoppers) to stop it from rotating. Especially once those heims start to wear in, or if you're using junk heims. If you run wobble stoppers, you have to tack the heim/jam nuts to the tie rod or its gonna break that stuff free because they are the next weak link in the chain that can spin. The only way I can see getting around that is doing some wizardry and have your ram mount and pitman arm tie rod mount working together on the center link to keep it from rolling over but jeeeez, I don't see people spending the time to figure that out
Also, the further away from centerline on the center link that the mounts get for the shortest tie rod and the ram, the worse the roll over is going to be.
Its just a good rule of thumb to run wobble stoppers and tack everything together on the center link if you have other stuff mounting to it. I haven't been able to build one set of swing set steering and have the center link want to stay straight with stuff mounted off it as it turns. And then throw in the truck bouncing off whoops, it all wants to swing up and down (ESPEICALLY with the mount coming off the front side of the center link, like this truck). I have tested this theory already when I built the steering for the ranger I'm doing currently, worst case scenario is the center link slaps up and down so hard that you break the jam nuts free (if they aren't tacked) and then the center link rolls more than it should and your steering starts binding up on the heims/jam nuts for the shortest tie rod and you cant turn the truck correctly. That's not something I want to have in the back of my mind at 70-80mph, eeeeeverrrrrr haha!
The reality is, in general if you're not trying to completely redo the whole entire front end of a truck, all the way down to the frame rails/factory engine crossmember being changed, the ram and the shortest tie rod are going to be angled coming to the center link. There just is not enough room on a ford ranger to get around it. UNLESS, you're bumping the truck out way lower than you should be, but that's a whole other topic of discussion
He's making machined broached pieces for the factory ford ranger steering boxes? Or for the Saginaw boxes? I haven't found anyone that makes machined ones for ranger boxes, but that would be nice to know about
