Steering/Stopping


LittleBigFoot

15+ Year Member

OTOTM Winner
V8 Engine Swap
Solid Axle Swap
Joined
Aug 7, 2007
Messages
1,651
Points
3,101
City
Denver Colorado
Vehicle Year
79-00
Transmission
Automatic
This post regards steering, stopping, and axles, so I figured General Discussions was a decent place to post it.

I finished my SOA leaf sprung SAS on a 2000 Ranger a few weeks ago. I had a bit of a jankety inverted y steering set up. I'm running into a few problems and I'm looking for direction. BTW, the axle is a HP D44 w/ disks from a 79 full size bronco.


I contemplated standard crossover, with a knuckle to knuckle tie rod and a drag link that intercepts the tie rod near the passenger side. I have a piece of 1.5" wide cold rolled bar drilled for tie rod ends. It has about a 20 degree bend in it to clear the leaf spring pack. Eh?

I'm also considering using a passengerside flat top knuckle with a 1" spacer and a highsteer arm, and running a pitman arm to knuckle drag link, and a knuckle to knuckle tie rod.

I'm also considering using a flattop driverside knuckle with the fun little curvy steering arm and running a knuckle to knuckle tie rod, with a drag link that runs from my pitman arm to the steering arm w/ spacer. Supposedly all D44s use the same 3 stud pattern for the steering arm, and dodge arms lead up, while chevy arms angle down. It'd possibly eliminate the need for a spacer and longer studs. I could use a knuckle from a 5 lug F250, or (I'm researching) a knuckle from a 5x5.5 dodge. Anyone know the compatibility?

I called around on craigslist, and found a guy parting a 76 F250. It's an 8 lug D44 with drums and the high steer arm. I could get it for 130 bucks.

Shitty thing is, my D44 is already geared to 4.30 and it's got molly shafts. And the 8 lug he's got has drums. Disk brake conversion using the parts from my current D44?

I'm on a college kid budget so I'm looking for a cost friendly course to take.

Any advice or direction would be great.

Thanks
 

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