The Black Pearl SAS and build

[KurtECV]

I went to the wrecking yard last night to get some EV-1 injector connectors and just happened to walk by a 94 ranger and noticed it didn't have A/C so i grabbed the heat only hvac box.

I did find a B2 with an LS on one of the FB LS swap pages.... he pretty much cut the hvac vent in half... hoping i can avoid that to some extent.

I wasnt planning on doing this swap tl winter 2019/2020 but with the 94 explorer i got for free (Project Bail-out on here) I may pull the 4.0/A4LD and put the trans in that rig, sell it and use the funds for this rig.

 

[KurtECV]

Well back on track with the SAS portion of the build.

Started mocking the final details of the steering and track bar.

The drag-link to the tie bracket isn't welded yet or the frame side of the track bar. The plan tomorrow is to get the frame bracket area finish welded and the bracket welded in plate.

Notice in the above picture the adjustable track bar bracket.

It's close but we can do better than that!

Raise the bolt up one position on the track bar. Both sections of PCV are at 12° and within 2 inches of each other.

The drag link is adjustable on both ends, the track bar has a hiem on the axle side and a factory bushing on the frame side (not ajustable) but I may change this after some thought.

Notice the pitman arm is drag-link over currently, unless someone has some insight, it will most likely stay that way.

 

[BKennedy]

How much of a drop is your pitman arm? I used my Superlift 4-5" lift pitman arm to get the angle lower. I also raised the track bar axle mount. Lower is better.

The heim at the axle side of the track bar on mine is a OEM bushing. Its quieter. I got it from BC Broncos because I had to bend around the pumpkin and the have a ready-made unit.

 

[KurtECV]

How much of a drop is your pitman arm? I used my Superlift 4-5" lift pitman arm to get the angle lower. I also raised the track bar axle mount. Lower is better.

The heim at the axle side of the track bar on mine is a OEM bushing. Its quieter. I got it from BC Broncos because I had to bend around the pumpkin and the have a ready-made unit.

I am not sure what drop I have. I believe it's the 6 inch drop. Its what came on my rig when I bought it.

I was talking to a buddy last night and I still have a lot of options still.

The track bar mount on the frame it pretty much going to be left in one spoy but other than that my options are still:
Pitman arm over/under

Raise the axle side of the track bar (not a bad idea, I have heard of guys having problems with the Drag link hitting the track bar bolt.

And moving the tie rod side of the Drag link closer or further from center to get equal (or close) lengths on the two links. With the option of going crossover steering with a double sheer bolt on the knuckle.

 

[KurtECV]

Got the track bar welded up today. From the bushing bolt center to the end of the tube, where the hiem joint bung was 31.25

 

[KurtECV]

@BKennedy Can you go more into detail on what you mean by "Lower Is Better"?

 

[gmanpaint]

Dude, it's 6am for him. ahaha!

Pretty sure he is talking about the angles, as in the Lower the angle, the better it is. (Less stress on everything)

 

[KurtECV]

Thats what i assumed. So drag-link under and adjust the track bar to the lowest mounting point on the frame. I remember the all mighty Rick saying something (to someone) about keeping the track bar bracket as short as possible to alleviate stress on the frame.

 

[gmanpaint]

Yeah, it's about leverage. Less is better. Most breaks happen at the frame side, as there is no give.

Angles change with articulation. If you set at a high angle to begin with, it increases on droop, and causes more bind. Better to be more flat than up and down per say. Less stress to move side to side as intended.

I would think as high up on the frame bracket as possible. This means higher up on the axle bracket. Gotta find that happy medium. This is the reason I dislike prefab brackets with preset bolt holes. Harder to dial it all in.

 

[KurtECV]

That what i was thinking. I am going to finish weld the frame bracket tonight (if i can) and adjust some things. Hoping i can get the shop cleaned up and everything moved to be able to turn the truck 90* from where it is now, and start on everything that needs to be done to the passenger side.

Depending on how things go with the LS parts, and money, I may start on that here soon as well. Putting the A/T in Bail-out.

 

[Kirby N.]

@BKennedy Can you go more into detail on what you mean by "Lower Is Better"?

Brian means- the flatter your draglink and tracbar is at ride height the better. this is because when they are flatter they will travel through the suspension cycle with less side to side movement. When you droop your passenger tire, your axle goes left due to the design of a tracbar. When you stuff your passenger tire, your axle moves to the right due to the design of a tracbar. This is much more exaggerated when there is a steep angle on your tracbar. This not only puts stress on the cbushings and radius arm bushings- it also can impede travel when your tires begin to make contact or you reach the limit of the working angle of those bushings in your radius arms.

If you look at a lot of buggies, they are built with flat or even a negative slope in the tracbar (frame mount is lower than axle mount) especially in setups with rear tracbars to lessen the side to side axle movement through travel.

You can make steep setups work (my explorer was really steep), but you will have to account for that lateral movement with counter measures.

Mounting the draglink above the pitman arm is fine- except in your picture it looks like you will max out the travel of the heim on the pitman arm when your passenger side is at full droop. I am not a fan of heims in steering setups and I actually went back to TREs on my explorer and started with TRE on my ranger because heims wore too quickly. I have also found that I get more travel out of the long travel TREs found on the chevy 1 ton TRE setups.

 

[BKennedy]

Yeah, what he said ^^^

And, I had binding on the pitman arm heim at full passenger side drop. I pulled the pitman arm, heated it glowing red in a torch and twisted it slightly right behind the drag link mount hole. The twist in the arm centers the heim on the arm at ride height. I wrapped it in a welding blanket and let it sit overnight to cool slowly. I got the idea when I called BC Broncos to discuss their steering binding and they said they do this on nearly all the early Bronco builds that go through the shop.

My drag link is also mounted below the pitman arm so I could lesson the degree of angle. If you did that, and raised the axle track bar mount, you would reduce the angle a bunch without a ton of work. I bought a Duff weld on kit that raised the axle track bar mount 2" It was a pain and I don't recommend it because it was designed for a early Bronco axle and I have a F150 HP axle. It was also single sheer like the original mount. I ended up modifying it so much that it would have been easier to fab one myself off the original mount. I will find a picture and post it up in a few minutes.

 

[KurtECV]

That makes more sense. I will have to make some adjustments. Ive only got the track bar frame bracket tacked in place right now. I figure the only constant right now is the location of that bracket..

everything else is adjustable at this point, which is exactly how i had (over) planned thing at this point.

 

[BKennedy]

There is some discussion of angles, track bars, pitman arms and drag links in my build thread. I went through the same issues and we have nearly the same axles.
Post 1523 is where it starts to get interesting Bkennedy's SAS and Rebuild Thread

Picture of the pitman arm post heat and twist

Older picture of track bar and drag link angles

Pictures of axle track bar mount

 

[KurtECV]

I am going to have to plan on doing the pitman arm twist this weekend.
That track bar riser looks like the one wild horses sells. I have been keeping that in mind if needed

 

[mr cribb]

 

[KurtECV]

Well i finally ordered my tig attachment for my mig welder.

my welder:
Welder, "Muscle Mig" Wire Feed

The Tig attachment:
25' Cable Conversion Kit (MM140SL and MM250SL)

 

[KurtECV]

Got some good work done on the truck this weekend, the front suspension is pretty much done. After some thinking, i am going to keep the original upper coil spring retainers and get rid of the square tube that is in the center of the drivers side bracket.

I turned the truck in the shop, front wheel drive, but i have two truck lengths (in the direction it is sitting now) to drive around in (forgive the mess, i just shoved stuff out of the way as needed lmao) it gives me a good reason to actually clean my shop up for once. You and even see Project Bail-Out in the background.

That should be about full droop on the truck, minus the weight if the 35 inch tire.

I think the freebie shocks a buddy gave me are going to be long enough, i have a set of 6 from his early 70s bronco.

Pulled the right side Radius Arm to get the shock mounted and to finish swapping in the James Duff 7* caster bushings, It was 19 or so degrees outside and not much better INSIDE my shop so i had to make a little Easy-Bake Oven so i wasnt sitting around watching paint dry freezing my boots off. There is a little radiant heater in there, actually worked better than i thought, i figured it was going to orange peel and look like crap but it did well.

All back together!

Still have a list of stuff to do with it like clearance the engine cross-member, brake line bleeding, rear shock tabs. I am hoping to be able to take it for a drive around the property next month if i can.

 

[KurtECV]

Also a big plus, the tires dont rub on the radius arms at full lock (by hand)

 

[KurtECV]

Question for the peanut gallery:

I am going to be mounting the rear, lower shock points this weekend. What would be a good angle?

The upper mounts are in the stock location. Most say perpendicular to the ground is the most efficient, which is possible. I have read that perpendicular to the ground at full compression is best. Fox recommends no more than 5% angle on them, but i believe that was for coil-over, so i don't know how much that applies to conventional shocks; i wouldn't imagine it would differ by much.