When I was doing my alignment I noticed the axle shifts a little more than normal solid axle trucks. There is also some play between the steering box and plates. Not much but enough to see and drive me crazy. IFS box Bolts are torqued to 200 ft lbs. I am running 1/16 toe in and 8 deg. caster. Truck tracks straight at 70 with no bump steer of wobble, but the wheel wont stay straight because of the axle shifting I guess? Anybody else run into this problem? Will
Axle shifting after SAS
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Aren't you running a 7.5" eye to eye shackle. That longer shackle length in the front may be part of the reason you get so much axle shift. I am currently running a 4" eye to eye. I plan on redoing the shackles to 4.5" in the near future but no longer than that for me. I have a little axle shift. By installing supports in the shackles I reduced some of the shift. With a lifted spring over setup we have to expect some shift. All that I know to do are brace the shackles, add a disconnectable track bar, or go extreme and do dual shackles with a 4 link setup. As for your steering box how long is the shank of your mount bolts. Is it possible they are shanking out before the contact the mounting surface?
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The steering box really puts a lot of twisting force on a part of the frame that was never really designed for that. When I originally plated the frame I didn't run the plating all the way to the body mount on the outside, and didn't run it all the way to the front crossmember on the inside. After three years of wheeling the inside of the frame had several cracks all the way from the top to the bottom radiating from the corners of that little rectangular hole. I have since plated the frame all the way forward, and even installed a crossmember that bolts to the inside of the frame behind the steering box and attaches at the other frame rail. I now have very little twist, and hopefully I won't have to deal with a cracked frame again in another three years.Will Knox said:
Later,
....Mike
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Great I guess I have some cracks to look forward to. I used the bentup steering box plates. They really aren't that long. Did you remove the old plates and replate the whole thing or just add plates to it? I am not looking forward to grinding all of that back off.Mike said:
Trent
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As Mike said... In the beginning I did not plate enough of the frame.. and ended up with some twisting and cracking issues. On the inside I used 1/4" plate from the front crossmember all the way back to the engine mount. On the outside I went from the Body mount and ran it all the way back past my ford shock tower. (used as plating for the tower too).... I also ran 1/4" plate on the the bottom of the frame just for good measure.
As for the axle movement. I installed a panhard rod to eleminate any axle movement. This tightened up my steering and adds lots of life to the shackle bushings. An earlier post said to make it disconnectable... but I disagree... I have been running mine on and off the road with no ill effect. I can flex just as much now as I did before the panhard rod. Just make sure you set it up right.
Yogi
As for the axle movement. I installed a panhard rod to eleminate any axle movement. This tightened up my steering and adds lots of life to the shackle bushings. An earlier post said to make it disconnectable... but I disagree... I have been running mine on and off the road with no ill effect. I can flex just as much now as I did before the panhard rod. Just make sure you set it up right.
Yogi
Will Knox said:
Yogi, What kind of rod did you use? I have alread destoyed 1 bushing and have some alignment problems. I agree with you in that they dont rob any travel and need to do something before I move the hangers. How did you set yours up? Thank you for your time.
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