Technical Need Source for Heavy Duty Tie Rod and Drag link tubing

You didn't mention temporary. To me in the time you might spend correctly sleeving you could make a new correctly sized tie rod. This isn't a factor in your current issues, but you mentioned needle bearing king pins. In situations involving numerous impacts, read rough roads and pot holes, the needle bearings tend to brinnel the king pins. In rough service bushings perform better. Hope you get it sorted out.

 

If you research this web-site and others you will see that needle bearing kingpins aren't recommended. Bearings are designed to rotate and will give you many years of service if sized correctly. The limited back and forth movement of the needle bearing's on your spindles will fail prematurely because of this. Also needle bearings aren't designed to absorb road impact and will eventually fall apart.

 

Seeing the pic now, I can tell you two things, the tie rod out in front is not doing you any favors. I just redid my front suspension as of May 2023 and having the tie rod in the tie rod behind the axle has made a drastic improvement in steering feel (and looks!) for my pick up shown in the avatar. I ran it out front since I built the truck in 2003-2007. I didn't know any better at the time and procrastinated the rest of the time until the wheel cylinders started leaking and bit the bullet and made many needed improvements while it was down.

The second thing is I am wondering if the holes in your arms are tapered with a straight bolt through them. Even if they are tight I would think that the taper of the hole allows the bolt to shimmy around in the hole during rough rides. Small movements turn into big movements at the tire tread. The holes are usually drilled out to 5/8" or so when running the heims on an arm originally had tie rods. A clearer pic of the front axle from the front, one fro above and a few close ups of the areas in question would help tremendously. Also select "full image" when posting, we can see more detail that way, like so...

 

Given that the steering and suspension on straight axle cars appears to be pretty simple.............but is actually a series of somewhat complex interactions, I would consider following traditional solutions to making the components work as they should rather than trying to force things to work the way you prefer. Not trying to be a smarta** here, but many times people get an idea in mind and just don't want to accept that it might not work as intended. I'm no expert on straight axle suspension and steering. I'll post some diagrams that may prove helpful, or it may be things you already are aware of. All I can say though is that you can't ignore the Ackerman or any of the other relationships and get a proper driving vehicle. Again, this is not written negatively but hopefully an answer can be found somewhere in them.


Hopefully there is an answer that helps you........

 

Thanks guys. The steering arms were drilled to 5/8 for a standard bolt. I am not against changing what is needed to fix the wobble and make it safer. I hope to not have to cut the whole front end off and start over. As for if there is some tire scrub in a parking lot, I am actually ok with it, if that is all that is going on.

We took both the 27 and 31 out Las night. The 27 worked pretty well and the 31 definitely still needs attention, waiting on parts.

I didn't mention the 31 is what we built for my son. He and I did the 27 6 years ago and he drove it all through high school so it was decided to piece together one for him. He is much better than mine too.

 

Wow! Thank you. I just downloaded all of that to read through and let it soak in!!

 

Beautiful truck too!

 

Here are a couple pic of the front axle. Yes Akerman might as well be my neighbor.

 

And the 27.

 

Have you ever jacked the car up and put jack stands under the frame and just started shaking the front end around? There is a lot going on with your front end that could be the cause of the bump steer.

 

Yes I have. The 31 is just getting driving. Heims, hubs, tie rod, drag link, king pins and bearings all brand new. Used axle, spindles and wishbone.

 

As for the 27, it is tight and works very well. I am wondering if i should take some leafs out. Thoughts? How many? Rides very rough.

 

Seals It https://sealsit.com/?s=rod+end+seals&post_type=product&product_cat=rod-end-seals-boots has seals for the spherical rod ends and my choice for spherical rod ends and tubing would be https://rodendsupply.com

 

Ok so looking at your nice big pictures, I see a few things that jump out.

-The tires are really wide, and the wheels have a lot of offset towards the outside (wide tires would be working that Corvair box really hard due to the amount of contact patch they have). The wheel offset, plus the additional track width from the brake rotor, will cause the tire to swing around the kingpin rather than pivot with it (I forget the terminology for this principle, hopefully someone will fill in the blank for me), the centerline of the kingpin should intersect the center of the tire tread as close as possible, that is why the kingpins go into the axle at an angle rather than straight up and down.

-The passenger side steering arm where your tie rod attaches appears to be longer than the left (can't be certain on this, could just be the picture.) and it is not a match to the driver side steering arm, they potentially could be swinging in different arcs.

-The other big thing is the pitman arm is at an angle and the heim joint articulation looks totally maxed out and may be even binding.
I really think the problem is somewhere in your setup, you just have to do a bit of detective work and shake out the issue, the tie rod tube oscillating is very unlikely from what I am seeing.

 

The scrub line, I believe is what I refer to as the imaginary line of the king pin inclination angle where it would meet the road surface, is damn near center of the tire. I could try narrower tires. I understand what you are saying. The tires are a 215 if I remember right. The drag link can be turned by hand as it is just gravity finding it spot on the heim ball. There is no binding. On the 27 it would be better to have the pitman arm straight vertical, but it is mid way through the swing and the tires turn as far as that can without hitting the wishbones.

 

Your understanding of the scrub line is wrong. Scrub line is as if you took a string line and ran it from the lowest point of the rear rim to the bottom of the front tire. Anything hanging down past the string is a hazard.

 

Yes, scrub line is anything that hangs below the tire rim. A safety concern to keep the steering and critical components from hitting the pavement if a blowout occurs. Scrub radius is the distance from the center of the front tire contact patch to the point where the king pin center line projection hits the pavement. The ideal is that the king pin center line contacts the pavement in the center of the tire contact patch. But the world is sometimes not ideal, but less is better. It is a tire wear, steering effort, and potential handling issue.

 

Ok, my bad. Scrub radius not scrub line. Both should be good as the car sits.

 

Question on steering box the first set of pictures the tires look mostly straight ahead and the pitman arm is about straight down. ****uming the box is centered, looks ok with about the same movement available front and back. In the second set of pictures, again the tires look mostly straight ahead, but now the pitman arm is not in a good position at all if that's centered???

 

It is strange but the wheels are centered and so is the steering box. There is a wide spline on the output shaft on that box and it was the only way to make the pitman arm steer it at all. It is a full swing, may work better if I worked to get it straight up and shorten the drag link. This car actually works very well, most concern is the 31

 

You're correct to want larger OD tubing, as especially with longer tie rods they can indeed flex, and cause death wobble.
I buy weld bungs in 5/8" LH and RH, and make my own tie rods and drag links from 1.25" tubing. Never had a car with death wobble yet, and cured other's cars of the issue by setting kingpin angle, toe in, and replacing those wimpy tie rods.
I buy my weld bungs from QS Components online, and I buy tubing from my local steel yard. QS has weld bungs for various ID sizes of tubing, so once you get the weld bungs you can take one to your local steel yard and buy tubing to fit.

Wider front tires will always contribute to whatever issues you have with death wobble. And of course Ackerman angles too can contribute to the problem. Tie rods on the front side are always close to impossible to get proper Ackerman angles, and may require more toe in, or more kingpin inclination to help make it work. But the real fix is to get the tie rod on the backside if possible.

 

Didn't Corvair steering boxes have to be modified in some way?

 

Yes, you have to bore a hole in the cover and switch the gearing to exit the other direction. This one was done when I got it. You may be on to something. Maybe the exit shaft just needs to be reindexed to get the large spline where I need it - like I did on the 31. Thank you. Even still. The 31 is the one with the shimmy.

 

Since you mentioned a reversed steering box. If yours was done by a major company I am sure you are OK on this item. However with some small shops, maybe not. When reversing any recreating ball steering box in the process of flipping the worm gear you need to remove it from the shaft and flip it to keep the taper on the teeth in correct relationship to the sector gear. This needs to be done to be able to adjust the play in the box. Next item - positioning the pitman arm. You don't do it in the box. When****embling the box center the worm and correctly install the sector gear. If not centered you will not get equal movement both sides of center. The wide spline is going to be where the factory wanted it to be. If you want to re- clock the pitman arm that has a wide spline it's common to take a triangled file and file a spline onto the wide one on the arm so all splines are fine and you can position the pitman arm anywhere you want without affecting the steering box being centered.

 

Thank you, I am not sure who reversed the one I have on the 27, likely someone in their home shop. It is in the center of the throw, but possibly hindering steering radius to some extent. I believe it is as tight as the wheels can turn without hitting the wishbone. I did the 31 box and it has the pitman arm vertical and centered in the throw.

 

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/tech-week-reversing-a-122-525-steering-box.566576/

 

Thanks. Got that downloaded now for reference.

 

I found my plate style bolt on steering arms. Can try those this weekend. Iola swap meet is going on so depends on how much time I end up with

 

Put your tie rod where it belongs, and watch the issue disappear.

 

I note you have F-1 spindles on an A axle. I’m not sure they use the same kingpin inclination angle. What is your final camber?

You really do have huge tires on the front of that thing, and the tie rod looks scrawny. But it might just be the tires.

I’m another guy who isn’t a fan of heim joints on steering. I’d bet if you used proper tie rod ends, with hefty enough bars, you could even get those huge tires to stop wobbling. And if you fix the Ackerman, it would steer around corners without scrubbing.