decreased steering radius on T2

[Lenny]

Today I began setting up the front of my Trooper to run fox shocks and have 14.5" of travel. The first thing I did is to drop the stock shocks and see if the cv joints will take a 14.5" travel without binding. The cv joint wasn't my first limitation. The ball joints were. They wouldn't handle the swing of the a-arms through a 14.5" suspension stroke. I was limited to about 11.5", anything more would bind the ball joints. To correct this I did a little machining to releive the binding and give the joints the necessary movement range. Now I could swing my a-arms to provide a full 14.5" of travel without binding. I did have to rotate my heims joints a little so they wouldn't bind. You can do this with a couple of wrenches in a few minutes. Now that everything is ready for 14.5" of travel without binding problems with the joints or cv's, I discovered that I was able to turn the front spindles somewhat farther in both directions then stock steering. The outboard cv joint is allowing more bend without binding then the one off the dif. This lets us turn farther without binding. If the rack in the steering box were to move an aprox. inch in each direction extra, the cv joints take it without binding. This tells me that if we use a 2" longer rack in the steering box we would improve steering radius quite a bid with no downside. Unless I'm missing something at this stage, I plan to machine a longer rack too as long as I'm getting all inbolved with the front of my Trooper. I am not going to attempt to lower the front dif. Decided against it.

I'll keep you posted. Being hipper, I may have gotten a little excited too soon. Dam my hipper activeness and attention deficit.

Lenny

[showa]

Lenny,

Sounds like your realy getting this thing figured out.......Just curious if it would be easier/ possible to get an off the shelf rack to fit your needs ???

I understand you enjoy prototyping, I envy you guys that have those talents......

[Lenny]

showa, thanks for the input. I would rather find a standard rack if I can. Making one is actually fun but I don't think I have the correct gear cutter to do it. Had a chance to buy several hundred cutters years ago for $300. Ttried to get him down and he wouldn't budge. I took my pride and walked away. You don't know just how many times I thought of how stupid I was since then.

Lenny

[Kinarfi]

Lenny, please explain what you did to get more turn on the CVs. I just screwed the forks out an extra 1/2" on each side and that caused mine to bind. The way I tested mine was to turn the wheel to the stop and then push it out further while turning and I could feel the CV internals bumping and forcing the wheel to straighten out just slightly. I kept turning the fork in on each side until I couldn't feel any thing and then did my alignment. With my steering wheel centered, I could turn my wheel either way about 345 degrees and very close to equal, not using instruments to measure. I don't see how you could possibly use a 2" longer rack gear.

Kinarfi

[ksimpsy]

so Lenny, how far lock to lock would that be? 5.5 inches? i just briefly measured mine but not to precisely.

Kevin

[Kinarfi]

so Lenny, how far lock to lock would that be? 5.5 inches? i just briefly measured mine but not to precisely.

Kevin

Ksimpsy, Can you take another measurement as accurately as possible and post it, Please,

kinarfi

[Lenny]

Here is just what I did. Keep in mind that my objective was to get my 14.5" of suspension travel. I did not do anything to or modify my CV joints in any way. To acheive the 14.5" of travel, I had to modify my ball joints slightly to get them to swing through a larger angle. Not to rotate more but to swing up and down more without binding. I didn't modify the ball joint on the end of the steering connecting rod yet so I just removed the ball joint so I could proceed and will modify that joint later. I was just working on the suspension componets on the Trooper's right side. Haven't done the left side yet. With the steering connecting rod removed and after acheiving my 14.5" of travel, I could put the suspension at full droop to check for free turning of the CV joints. It turned freely without binding. I then again with the suspenson at full droop rotated the front right spindle as far forward (turning left) as I could without getting CV joint binding when turning the spindle. I then did the same test with the spindle rotated as far rearward (turning right) as it would go without CV binding. Upon further measuring, I find that I can turn left somewhat extra. This extra could be accomplished if the steering box gear rack would pull an additional 1-1/4" to the left. However it's not going to let me push it to the right more, thus when turning right. This would mean that we could get the outside wheel, in a turn, to turn somewhat more then we have now. But we cannot push the wheel on the inside of a turn, to turn tighter. Thus we have a conflict. I'll have to think on this further so see of there is a way to get the outside wheel to turn tighter without over steering the inside wheel. This is starting to get messy. I think that with the outside wheel turned tighter then now, even though we didn't turn the inside wheel more, we would turn tighter as the outside wheel probably has more influence. If this could be done we would go from straight ahead where everything would be ok to the outside wheel progressively turning more then now. This doesn't sound good. Raising the steering box would give us about 1/2 of the benifit without creating problems but I'm not going to do that. Too many things change. I'm not done thinking on it yet but it is starting to look iffy.

I'll let you know.

Lenny

[Kinarfi]

As I worked on mine, one of my goals was symmetry, and I did notice that the limiting bind was on the wheel that was turned outward, left wheel turning left, but not inward and it only took 2 turns of the fork to go from bumping to free, but with more, it would actually lock up the CV

Kinarfi

[Lenny]

If you look, you will see that the dif is rearward from the axel centers. this puts the CV shaft at a tighter angle one way when turning. if the diff were to be moved forward, that would open things up for more turning. Actually moving dif forward probably wouldn't be so bad but the driveshaft would have to be legthened. Bottom line, when we run out of other things to do, we can if we choose, probably decrease the turning radius. Does get a little involved though.

Lenny

[Kinarfi]

That sounds fun

[flatbed]

Lenny, one thing you want to watch when changing the length of your rack & pion is your bump steer. changing the length or height of the rack & pion can cause the car to turn its self as the suspension cykles, also i think you could change the location of the front diff with out have to redo the driveline, i think there is a sliding yoke in the middle.

[Lenny]

flatbed, I'm not planning on doing anything with the diff now but have decided that if it were mover forward about 3-4", we could get a nice increase in turning ability. As far as the rack goes, I agree with you on its location in reference to other stuff. If I later do make changes to improve steering, the rack would have to be probably about 1/2" longer on each side and the steering rods about 1/2" shorter. I would study the possible effects but this little bit might be ok. The changes I'm making now will not be effected by moving the diff forwaqrd later. So far I manqaged to get everything to swing through 14.5" of travel without binding full droop or bump, turning right or left. I'll post pics of what I did to my ball joints and some clearance problems I had to address. Tomorrow, Saturday, I begin cutting the frame and mounting my front fox shocks. I have the rears on and they are a lot better then my modified shocks which were a lot better then the stock shocks. Can't wait to get the front done and try it.

Thanks for all your input and help.

Lenny

[flatbed]

Shocks on the trooper is the best thing you can do for them, it is such a big difference in ride, you will love the fronts even more than the back.

[ERV JR]

What price are you all paying for these shocks ?

[Lenny]

I paid avg $250 per shock. Fox 2.0 10" coil over with remote reservor. That is what I found after looking for a long time. Flatbed did a little better. Remote reservors are not really necessary and 8.5" should be fine. I beleive flatbet uses 8.5" fox 2.0. He is probably more up on suspension then anyone else on this forum so I pay a lot of attention to what he has to say.

Lenny

[silverbullet]

flatbed, I'm not planning on doing anything with the diff now but have decided that if it were mover forward about 3-4", we could get a nice increase in turning ability. As far as the rack goes, I agree with you on its location in reference to other stuff. If I later do make changes to improve steering, the rack would have to be probably about 1/2" longer on each side and the steering rods about 1/2" shorter. I would study the possible effects but this little bit might be ok. The changes I'm making now will not be effected by moving the diff forwaqrd later. So far I manqaged to get everything to swing through 14.5" of travel without binding full droop or bump, turning right or left. I'll post pics of what I did to my ball joints and some clearance problems I had to address. Tomorrow, Saturday, I begin cutting the frame and mounting my front fox shocks. I have the rears on and they are a lot better then my modified shocks which were a lot better then the stock shocks. Can't wait to get the front done and try it.

Thanks for all your input and help.

Lenny

Silverbullet.

Lenny if you could show me what you had to cut to fit the shocks.Also to get 14.5 of travel.Some pics would be great

Thank's [email protected]

[Lenny]

Silverbullet.

Lenny if you could show me what you had to cut to fit the shocks.Also to get 14.5 of travel.Some pics would be great

Thank's [email protected]

I'll take a look and see if I can get some pics that show what I did. Part of the problem is that my ball joints are put back together so I can't take a picture of it. If I remember correctly, I machined both the ball and the socket of the ball joint to get the extra range. The concern is weakening the joint and inviteing brakage. Brakage at the wrong time could spell disaster. Therefore, if you machine, pay close attention to where you can machine and keep the best strength. You will give up some strength. I hit my front really hard a couple of times and I was susprised it could take it, hard enough to figure I could sacrafice a little strength. That said, I have plans of replacing all my front joints with no slop good quality and slightly larger joints. That is all joints except the heims joints holding the A-arms. To get the travel out of the heims joint on the steering linkage, you have to put your wheels all the way from right to left while moving from full droop to full bump. Doing this while decifering what is the best rotational position for the heims. At max ranges, they will bind unless they are turned as close to neutral as possible. I didn't lower my front diff either. You would have to change A-arms pivot points too then. The same goes for making your rack and pinion longer. It needs to stay the same as stock so that you dont get bump steer. The closer all pivot pionts stay to the center of their CV joint on the inner axels, the more precise everything moves in respect to each other. You also have to cut your firewall back on each side by your feet if you plan to run bigger then about 29" tires. Mine is cut back to allow about 1" clearance when fully turned using my 33" dia paddle tires. Then you have to modify your clutch peddle to get full movement. And finally to get the smallest turnning radius possible without more exstream measures the diferential needs to move I beleive it was forward about 1-1/2" so it too lines up with the hub axels. Right now, while one side is trying to fully turn, it's restricted because the joints on the other side of the diff start to bind. To get both sides to reach just as far, The Diff has to be inline with the outboard axels.

Lenny

[silverbullet]

Silverbulletmotorsports.net

We have just finshed our electra-steer system. It bolts in to factory holes so no drilling needed. Remove hood. Bolt system in takes about 1/2 hr. Then all you due is wire in to ingition. And to battery. Now you are ready to go. Complete install time is about 1 1/2 hours. If system fails it goes back to manual steering. No being stuck in the middle of no where. We have tested this system for 2 mo. It has worked trouble free. Troopers-Renegade-Vipers. Cost is $1099.00 It took a long time but worth every penny.

[Az Bound]

Silverbulletmotorsports.net

We have just finshed our electra-steer system. It bolts in to factory holes so no drilling needed. Remove hood. Bolt system in takes about 1/2 hr. Then all you due is wire in to ingition. And to battery. Now you are ready to go. Complete install time is about 1 1/2 hours. If system fails it goes back to manual steering. No being stuck in the middle of no where. We have tested this system for 2 mo. It has worked trouble free. Troopers-Renegade-Vipers. Cost is $1099.00 It took a long time but worth every penny.

Do you still retain the old rack assembly or is it completly eliminated?

[rocmoc]

Silverbullet, how about some pics?

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico