CP's SAS

Have a long running thread on another site but since the number of offroaders there is very limited I thought I could start one here as a clearing house of my work thus far and questions. I'll be kinda breif...

SPECS (SO FAR):
Dana 44
Ford 9"
3.5" wild horses eb coils
Full spool in rear
open in front, will put a lunchbox in it though
5.13 (d44)
5.14 (9")
will be running 35" tires.

A few pics:

9" bolted in, not the final position, still need to set the pinion angle and weld the perches on.

The evil one has been removed

full size bronco buckets, cut down to stock explorer size. And a test fit of the spring...

Test fit of the buckets, with 2" spacer. Also have had to redrill the lower buckets to bolt in. and a couple of plumb bobs

I'll be replacing the stock sterring components with better parts, 1ton chevy TRE's, tie rod flip, etc.

That is all for now. I am going to weld caps on my spacers this week, and do another test fit. If all looks good i'll drill them for the bolts. Next weekend i'm taking some 2x6x.25 (stupid beefy) back to my parents to use the band saw to cut it up. Going to have to go above the drive shaft with my crossmember, it's also doubling as my RA mount....uhhh mounts haha (I have to outboard them for this axle).

 

[CodePoet]

Question....could I run a drop pitman arm? What is the difference between a stock pitman arm and a drop one? Is the drop on just longer (i thought that was it but want confirmation). If so then I could easily pick on of those to gain another inch or two of clearance. I don't want to have the drag link much lower (i'd have to make a new trac bar mount).

 

[sn0border88]

I would try raising the track bar a bit to improve the angle, but it probably wont help your clearence issue.

A dropped pitman arm is just that, its dropped. It might help you, but some better pictures of the hitting would be awesome.

 

[FROADER]

I've got a drop pitman arm on mine.

My links aren't quite parallel, but that will be fixed sometime. Here is a pic to show the links and pitman arm. I either want to raise the trac bar on the axle side or get a shorter pitman arm.

The suspension is also drooped out from being high centered.

 

[CodePoet]

Ok, I got some pics of everything. It's dark here so unfortunately they're not the greatest but I tried to lighten them up abit in GIMP so they're better than they were. Oh and NO those two steering box bolts will not hold the mount on, i'm going to weld the entire mount to the frame as I think it'll be stronger. On to the pics, don't mind the string, I can't get the nut to thread onto the tre anymore for some reason. But i'll be replaced with an all new dom/chevy TRE setup anyway so who cares...

General placement of everything, from pics of other setup this area is common.

All the way to the right i beleive (not at full lock yet)

All the way to the left (not at full lock yet)

I could move the trac bar mount towards the bucket a half an inch or so, but i'd really be tweaking the bushings. I'm thinking that the best bet is t make a custom trac bar for my application instead of trying to re-use the 30 year old f150 trac bar.

The pitman arm and upper t-b mount are both 17"s from the floor. That should be correct.

 

[sn0border88]

why dont you just move both mounts back, no tweaking of bushings.

If not it seems like you will have to make a new trac bar with clearance.

 

[colindo94]

I had the exact same trackbar bracket set up that you are using and today I ripped it off the frame like 300 yards into the rubicon. I had to weld it just to get it off the trail. If I were you I would reinforce it a little better.

 

[CodePoet]

So a bigger re-enforcing plate huh? I can do that pretty easy.

Snoboarder, the lower axle mount at the axle is part of the cast outer on these axles. Unfortunately I can move it. A straight trac bar would probably work just fine. We'll see.

 

[sn0border88]

I know that, but it there anything stopping you from making a new mount? I guess it should be last choice only, but it wouldnt be hard to do at all.

 

[CodePoet]

Technically...no I guess I could.

I kinda wish I could just mount the trac bar behind the factory location but there isn't room. I played around with a couple difference configurations today and it looks like i'll have to build a new trac bar. Not really too bad but not what I wanted to do. If I could just straighten the stock trac bar I think it would work fine, I may pick up a hf style pipe kinker and give it a go. If that don't work, a couple feet of DOM for the trac bar won't break the budget haha. I do have another trac bar here, but it's quite abit shorter and I don't think that it'd work. I'll of course give it a try though!

 

[lifeguard379]

any updates?

 

[CodePoet]

I was actually in LA most of last week and then I was visiting my parents over the weekend so not alot. I am down to all the small details that make a rig though!

I need to finish my trac bar mount (clearance it for the steering box bolt), re-enforce the frame where my crossmemeber mounts, finish welding up my bucket spacers, weld the buckets to the spacers and probably a few other things that I'm not thinking of. Going pretty good though

 

[IZwack]

I need to finish my trac bar mount (clearance it for the steering box bolt), re-enforce the frame where my crossmemeber mounts, finish welding up my bucket spacers, weld the buckets to the spacers and probably a few other things that I'm not thinking of. Going pretty good though

Also reinforce the panhard bar mount on the chassis-- mine was ripping/tearing the chassis and eventually i ended up boxing the entire chassis with 1/4" plate all the way around and then welding the mount.

 

[CodePoet]

Yeah, I have a piece of 2x6, 8"s long (cut in an "L" shape) that the trac bar mount is actually welded on. I'll then weld the whole piece onto the frame, will have a good deal of weld on it like that!

 

[CodePoet]

Need some opinions on a design change for my crossmember! As you see in the picture below my crossmemeber/ra mount is pretty darn simple...too simple I think. If I weld the two main parts (ra mounts and crossmember) together I will have to unbolt the entire front end if I ever need to perform tranny work.

Instead like to instead bolt the two together. I will be cutting out some "L" shaped re-enforcements for the frame that'll be notched for my slider pads (welded into them actually). I would weld the RA mount portion to these as well as bolt. For the crossmember portion however it will be bolted the frame and then bolted to the RA mount part using 2 1/2" grade 8 bolts (I use nothing but grade 8's) to make a solid piece. Does this sound good???

Recap, ra mount portion welded to the frame re-enforcement which will be welded to the frame. It'll be around 12-15"s long or so. Then the crossmemeber bolted to the ra mounts and the frame.

As it sits currently

 

[sn0border88]

sure, sound good to me. I think im picking up what your puttin down.

 

[CodePoet]

cool stuff man, thanks. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't being stupid

 

[lifeguard379]

sounds like a good idea. would be a pain to have to take every thing off to do simple work.

 

[CodePoet]

That was my thought. That and since my welds are progressing nicely i'd rather have a bead of weld AND bolts holding the ra mounts in as opposed to just bolts!

 

[CodePoet]

Does anyone know if there is a longer pitman arm that'll fit on a 1st gen steering box? My tre's are gonna hit my trac bar I beleive and would like an extra .5-1" of clearance. My trac bar mount is moved back as far as it possibly can (so much so i'm going to have to clearance it for the steering box bolt).

 

[IZwack]

You'll probably have to get a custom one made because pitman arms are matched to knuckles. In other words, if the pitman arm is too long, the knuckle will rotate too much and maybe bind with the inner "C"/knuckle.

Having said that, you can make your own pitman arm if you can find some thick steel stock. This is what I did on mine. You cut the old splines from the old pitman arm and thats the base of your pitman arm. You can then get a reamer and make the other side (that the TRE bolts to). You can also get a single Hi-Steer arm (for the D44 for example, probably the longer one with two holes -- right side arm) and graft that onto the portion of the pitman arm with the splines.