HD steering on a LD cruiser

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yotahed

yotahed

Diesel Head
10 Year 15 Year
Joined
Dec 16, 2010
Threads
52
Messages
906
Location
Kelowna, B.C.
Hey all,
Ive been pondering the idea of a high steer, or some other method of removing the rear steering link from my 91 lj78. With the amount of lift I have, paired with the castor correction plates, the rear steering rod and TRE's make contact with the radius arms, requiring clearancing to the radius arms. The trouble with this is, it weakens the arms as you have to take out quite a bit of material. Another option would be dropping the frame end of the arms and deleting the correction plates, so that proper castor could be achieved with bushings alone, but ground clearance is lost.
So begs the question if mini-truck or 60 series steering arms could be fit to the top of the swivel hub, and HD relay rod/ TRE's used in place of stock parts? Or a high steer kit? Only issue with the high steer for the mini-truck application is the pan-hard bar location and angle, which could be moved/changed fairly easily...and a high steer kit is readily available and reasonable(ish)
Just thinking out loud I guess, but this is a common issue with lifted LJ's (over 4") so I was thinking it may be of interest to others here.
cheers
 
The last mucked around with LJ77 I saw doing this rolled over very badly when the "modified" front to back of diff steering locked up in the middle of a corner after catching on the suspension and was all caught on video. I know this is is a coil but the same issues will exist with a leaf over. Just watched a friend do the same steering conversion to his gen1 surf many many issues to sort out including wandering steering and flexing springs etc.

Why do you need to lift it so much as they are a very narrow vehicle. DO you have pics of it?
 
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After mulling it over, i forgot about a radius arm flip, which would cure any clearance issues, and a mini truck high steer kit following that. the lift is enough to clear 35's when wheelin, and still looks good on the street with 33's. its 4.5" dobinsons all around with spacers in the front to compensate for the 3b weight.
Hey 77 whereabouts are ya?
 
I know of a guy here in NZ that notched both chassis rails to fit high steer and stop any binding, gives more up travel and was running 14" fox shocks I think.

P1010007-12.jpg


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Could be an option. Was alot of work and he said he wouldnt recommend doing it again. :D
 
Why would you need to notch the frame? that looks like he used a ifs box or something... cant really see from the pics the reason behind it..

Edit i see now. up-travel was probably the goal here yes?
 
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The way my truck is, a high steer kit should drop right in with the stock or a 60 series pitman arm(-1" height) with the possibility of relocating the panhard to the top of the axle instead of the front, which would be wise to prevent a bump steer issue anyway.
the bottom plates can be retained, and one would need to cut the steering arms off OR use the bottom plates off a mini truck axle... any thing i mightve missed chime in please... im kinda goin by educated feel here. :hillbilly:
 
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