I changed the steering box in my 1949 F1 to a cross steer box. Everything works great except now the wheels can turn WAY too far each way. I need to add stops(easy enough) My question is, How do I determine how far the wheels should turn before to stop the travel? 45°? less or more? Thanks.
What constitutes too far? Are the wheels or tires hitting something? If they are, make the stops just short of rubbing. If there is no interference, I sure wouldn't limit the turning radius. Kinda handy in a tight spot.
Set up the stops to just before the wheels / suspension hit any thing. or just before anything binds or the tires are turned to far and scrub.
I thought that the 52 F 1 chassis I had here for a while had long nuts on the king pin pinch bolts as steering stops. My Chevy pickup axle has what looks like a piece of angle iron with a hole in it that is held by the king pin pinch bolts nut. Something like that would be a quick no cost item to make and just take digging in the scrap pile for something to make them out of.
Thank you, jaw. No, the wheels don't hit anything but, it looks odd. The wheel on the inside of the turn goes about 60°. But I can leave it alone if the general consensus is that I'm not hurting anything or risking disaster.
The purpose of the stops is so you do not reach the limits of the steering box, if the truck was mine I’d make sure the travel wasn’t too far with the steering box. If I understand your last post you can turn the wheel all the way and not contact the leaf spring, if it is the steering box that runs out of travel then for sure you want to limit that.
Just make sure nothing over-center's. That's really bad. Turn both ways to check that the drag link or tie rod doesn't travel so far that it could go over center and then steer the wrong way. Otherwise just think about how far sideways you could get that puppy in a broad slide!
That's right, it stops on the limits of the box. I will have the wheel stop before it reaches that point. I don't know why I didn't notice before but, as I look at the pics I posted, I see a nut on the front of the axil by the center of the king pin. Tomorrow I will go out and see if that is the stop nut and maybe I can adjust it out. Thanks for all the replies.
Looks like your k/p keepers just have common 3/8” nuts on them instead of the OEM style long nuts that act as stops. You can find the long nuts from early Ford parts suppliers, or they could be made from hex stock on a lathe.
As has been mentioned, the tie-rod and drag link cannot be allowed to over-center. After that, if the tire does not hit anything, even over a bump, nothing is really "too far".
Stop nuts are easy enough to get: https://www.mooneyesusa.com/product-p/df3280.htm https://www.speedwaymotors.com/1937...ross-Bolt-Spindle-Steering-Stop-Nut,5345.html
Update: Thanks to all that gave advice. I took off the regular nuts and added some spare lug nuts I had. Now it works like it should, I believe. Thanks again.
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