thanks. guess theres another reason to fill my oxygen bottle.
what did you do, just cut the bottom half off that crossmember?
still waiting on my u bolts........ damn shipping company
got my pipe to make my steering drag link and track bar, so maybe ill slide my rear under and take measurements tomorrow before turkey.

 

i just cut the whole thing out. you can see where it was in the first picture and where i cut it out in the second. its been almost 3 years since i build this truck, but i think the drag link actually cleared but barely. any kinda axle drop though it would hit. you may be able to move the steering box down lower if you try that. but thats way more work then i wanted to mess with

also since your gonna have your steering box off. might wanna plate your frame as a precaution. i ended up cracking mine

 

thanks for that tip, ill be sure to do that.
i was just running all this through my head and im still a little confused..
if i need my steering arm on the knuckle to be moved to the front of the axle, instead of centered over the top of it, how would having a pitman arm facing forward help me with changing the direction of the wheels? is it just that the gears would spin the opposite direction to move the rear, but i would still have the drag angled toward the rear of the truck ?

 

was just looking through your photos again, my steering knuckle is actually on the driver side, so i would need to move the idler arm too face front and make up some crossover steering set up?

 

read into it more, going to try to find flat top knuckle for passenger sid eso i can run true high steer corssover.
any ideas where to look ?

 

yeah crossover is the way to go. not only cause it performs better but i really dont know how you can do a driverside steering arm set up.

heres a link to what you can find flat top knuckles on
http://77cj.littlekeylime.com/flatop_knucles.html

i got lucky and found a set in a junkyard on a 89 dodge ram.. they were dodge flat tops which i recommend staying away from. you have to modify and hack the hell out of them and they ended up causing me rubbing problems later on too. the best ones would be off a older chevy, you can find them on ebay or on offroad sites here and there. then when you find them you have to have them drilled and tapped then get a steering arm for that side and figure out your drag link set up lol. this was the most costly and time consuming part of my build.

if you can find some way to rig up steering to your driver side knuckle that would be cool but i really dont know how you could go about it

stock chevy knuckle next to the hacked up dodge flat top



theres the tapped and steering arm on the passenger side knuckle

 

yeah crossover is the way to go. not only cause it performs better but i really dont know how you can do a driverside steering arm set up.

heres a link to what you can find flat top knuckles on
http://77cj.littlekeylime.com/flatop_knucles.html

i got lucky and found a set in a junkyard on a 89 dodge ram.. they were dodge flat tops which i recommend staying away from. you have to modify and hack the hell out of them and they ended up causing me rubbing problems later on too. the best ones would be off a older chevy, you can find them on ebay or on offroad sites here and there. then when you find them you have to have them drilled and tapped then get a steering arm for that side and figure out your drag link set up lol. this was the most costly and time consuming part of my build.

if you can find some way to rig up steering to your driver side knuckle that would be cool but i really dont know how you could go about it

stock chevy knuckle next to the hacked up dodge flat top



theres the tapped and steering arm on the passenger side knuckle

 

okay so heres whats going on.
spoke to someone at wfo concepts and they have a flattop knuckle for the passenger side for $165. the guy told me a knuckle off a 72-77 chevy truck would work, so i would rather find one and pull it myself than pay to have one shipped across the country. i would then go with a 4" drop pitman arm on the astro van gear box.
its coming together, still waiting for parts though..

 

the hard part is finding those knuckles in a junkyard. hopfully you can. i went to a few and ended up getting the ones off a dodge cause i also didnt want to pay someone for knuckles.

you might not even need a dropped pitman arm. the astro van arm is flat, and id guestimate that i have about 10 inches of lift (a spring over and a 4inch block in the back, the front is level) and my drag link is totally flat if you look at that last pic i posted on page 4.

another thing i just thought of too why dodge knuckles suck (also i think some chevys did it too) is the tie rod ends goes in from the top of the knuckle. so in other words you have to disconnect your axle from the spring in order to change your tie rod end. so that might be something to consider too. i dread having have to fix one on the trail

love the build so far. im probably gonna do another street legal one soon

 

called like 20 junk yards in all of central nj, noone has anything i could use.. looks like i have to order it from wfo concepts. and would i need the astro van gear box? it seems as if i would rather have the pitman arm come back toward the rear instead of forward. i guess we'll find out when i bolt it in tonight, ubolts are to be delivered!