SAS Turning Radius Help!!

[dblake79]

OK so I am in the middle of a SAS and the Radius Arms are installed, Frame mounts are at the cross member for the trans. checking steering for bump, and panhard, everything looked sweet!! Then installed one of the new rims and tires and the tire hits the Radius Arm well before full turn.

It is a Dana 44 out of a Jeep Grand Wagoneer WMS to WMS is 62-1/2".
Rims are 3.75" back Space, and the Tires are 35x12.5x15 KM2 Mud Tires.
so I already need to get the adapters for the rear to go from 5x4.5 to 6x5.5 lug pattern and the thinnest I can get those are about 2". The 8.8 is 59.625".

OK so thats starting to get into two different questions but I will start with
1. How are you guys with a narrowed HP, or the Wagoneer axles keeping the turning radius, there is not much room on the axle or the frame to fix this? are you running spacers? I am willing to go this rout but not liking the added stress on the ball joints. Any help would be great.

2. The Adapters for the rear end are going to be 2" on each side to change the lug pattern, if any of you are running something like this how is the ware on it? I have fully rebuilt the rear axle before starting the SAS, with crom. axles new bearings and a ARB air locker with 4.88 being installed this week for the 35" tires.

 

[dblake79]

Bump!! anyone running a 2" plus wheel spacer on a Dana 44? dose it ware out the ball joints? should we try and move the radius arms in on the cross-member to gain tire clearance? any help would be great. The turning radius on the Jeep Grand Wagoneer we took the axle out of has a turning radius of 37.7' stock, if we are hitting the radius arms before the stock steering stop the this will not be drive-able....

 

[FROADER]

My tires hit the radius arms on the narrowed HP too, but I didn't worry about it.

Do you just not want to do 3 point turns in the neighbor hood or is there another reason you need it to turn that sharp?

 

[dblake79]

well my Tacoma has a 20' turning radius.... the Dana 44 has 37.7' turning radius and on the stock steering stops on the Dana 44 there is still about 1/2" - 3/4" of space before it hits the stop when the tires hit the radius arms... worried that the turning radius on trails, road use, parking lots will be unable to turn... I think the Explorers already had bad turning radius, this is worse.. But then again this is the first SAS or solid axle SUV/Truck I will have owned, if this is just part of the deal please let me know, LOL

 

[FROADER]

Bronco d44 stock is 34 ft. so I think you're stuck with what you have. Also, you don't want to put spacers on the front if you can help it. That will change the scrub radius which will make it harder to turn, have more bump steer and you'll feel torque twist in the steering wheel.

 

[dblake79]

OK I think I get what you are saying... But this would be true of the off-set rims I have also right, I got 3 and 3/4" back spacing on the rims when I ordered them to help with as much room as I could get... If I add spacers or had a bigger off-set it would be doing the samething? I am not doing the work, its getting done at a shop, so when I dropped off the tires and they were installed we found that the tire hit before the stops and the tire only looked to be turn slightly.... So as you can tell I was freaken out at the shop a little about not having any turning radius, if you and the rest here think there is not much to do about it and should just go forward with what I have and leave the guy alone about not having the Dana 44's stock turning radius then I think I could do that I just need to check with people that have done this, I only have the budget to do this once.... LOL
Thank you for your response!!

 

[FROADER]

Yeah, the backspacing is doing the same thing as a spacer, but you're only 3/4" off stock with the wheel you have now. Add another 2" on top of that (spacer), and you're way off. People have run them that way, (I believe Diff Wack Daddy has crazy backspacing on his wheels), but I'd rather have my tires rub the radius arms a little than deal with the problems you may run into with the wheels out so far.

Maybe some more people will join in with other advice too.

 

[Maniak]

One thing to thing about. When people make their own RA mounts they normally put the end of the RA under the frame.

If you look at factory setups with RA's they seem to put them just inside the frame rail.

Having the ends inside the frame rail will pull the RA away from the tire some and may give you a little more turn before the tire hits the RA.

~Mark

 

[RangerX]

You might look through RockRanger's build thread. He runs a Waggy D44, first with leaves, then with radius arms, and i think now he's doing a 3 link. Maybe he went through the same problem...