I have the body off the car and I have mounted the jeep box on the frame. When I have the box centered (with the flats up and down and the notch torward the engine) and I put the pitman arm on my wheel are turning too much to the left. When I try to adjust with the tie rods I run out of adjustment on the right side. The only way to get the wheels to align straight is to have the steering box not centered. The box doesnt run out of travel going lock to lock but I am worried that this is going to make the wheels turn to the left at high center what could be the issue? I have welded about .5" spacer to the frame to allow better alignment of the steering column.

 

Did you get this jeep box from corvette steering or is this a junkyard build?
Either way maybe you can call Corvette Steering and gain some advice.
I have the jeep box from them but haven't installed it, was going to do that next week after work one day. I also have my frame off the car and just installed the VBP front monoleaf last night.
Good luck...

 

Did you buy the kit or do your own? If you didn't buy the kit, the Jeep Pitman arm needs to be modified.

 

I bought the kit from corvettesteering. I have a manual drag link and a power pitman arm could this be the problem?

 

You still want to keep the flat on the input shaft exactly at 12 o'clock if at all possible.

The pitman arm has one blocked tooth to make it align to the pitman shaft in only one location. There are 36 teeth on the pitman shaft. The blocked tooth on the pitman arm prevents you from just moving the arm by one or two serrations. If you were to go in and machine the block tooth away (or a portion of the blocked tooth) that would allow you to move the arm by one or two serrations. Knowing the length of your arm, you should be able to calculate just how far 10 degrees will move the end of the pitman arm.

That might be enough to center your linkage.

Jim

PS I didn't realize that you purchased at kit. The supplier should have taken this into account with the pitman shaft. I would dump the problem back on him.

 

The Corvette Steering Jeep box is supposed to be resplined to use the original Corvette pitman arm (power steering or manual). Is ball stud in the drag link in the right place? There is a stack of opposed spings and cups that center the ball stud, maybe it is in the wrong position? I'm not really sure this is possible but it's worth looking at.

 

I mounted the box a little differently than the instructions said mostly because I wanted to strengthen the mounting location so I beleive that this made the box be in a different location. The input saft lines up good with the column. I am going to lengthen the drivers side tie rod and shorten the passenger side tie rod. What do you alls thinks?

 

The length of the tie rod affects bump steer. If one is longer that is good but one shorter is not. You can do it this way but you are affecting the bump steer properties which are terrible to begin with in a vet. Longer definitely helps.

 

First I would contact corvettesteering and make sure you have everything setup correctly. Make sure the pitman arm is aligned where it should be. After you have all that squared away then mention that you have offset the mounting location.
If you have moved the mounting position, how does your steering column line up? If you find that to be the culprit, you may want to cut your frame and weld in a thicker piece of metal to give you strength and not sacrifice your positioning.

BBShark also brought up a good point, your drag link ball stud could be in the wrong position which would affect the entire setup and give you the exact same issues as your having.
Anyone know how to rebuild one of these? I removed the cotter pin at the end but nothing would budge after that.

Norval, could you provide a simple definition of what bumpsteer is and how it is caused? How does those anti-bumpsteer kits from VBP help solve it, looks just like two triangle mounting plates.

CorvetteLvr73- PICS always help too! it might be easier to address your problems if we can see your setup.

 

I have never installed the kit but doesn't the kit use a power steering valve that you have to modify? If so I think the centerlink/draglink is your problem. You may need a power one instead of a manual. But like I said I never done one so I'm not 100% sure.

 

huh?

 

 

Bump steer is when you go over a bump and the car steers itself in a new direction causing a momentary loose of control.
All cars but the viper have this problem. Older cars like ours are really bad.
The car is aligned with it resting at a normal ride height. Deviate from this height and the front wheels toe in or toe out BADLY
As the front end rises the front tires toe IN and this can be over an inch and as the car's suspension compresses the tires to OUT.
Lets say you are flying over the crest of a hill, the type that make your stomach flutter. As the front suspension unloads the tires toe in really badly, like I said well over 1 inch. You come down on the other side and if alone the drivers wheel has the better traction and all this toe in causes that tire to shoot the car to the right. At the same time the suspension collapses and the tires toe OUT but the drivers wheel is already having the better traction shooting the car to the right and suddenly the added toe OUT is taken up entirely by the passengers wheel and suddenly that wheel is pointing a couple of inches to the right and the car darts badly in that direction. This is extreme bump or self steering. .050 would put a daytona speedway car in the wall and we are talking inches here. YOu loose control and wonder why the car acted this way.
The way around it is super stiff springs to eliminate most of the suspension travel and this is most peoples approach or you could redesign the susension mounting points and lengths of tie rods and eliminate this problem.
I tested a 2002 mustang and it was new at the time and I got 3/4 of an inch toe change in 3 inches of rise and this is a more modern car then our 30 year old design.
How to fix? Lower the outer tie rod, it needs to be lower more then the simple blocks that are advertised as a way to eliminate bump and you need LONGER tie rod sleeves which mean a new center link.
Lower the outer tie rod sleeves reduces toe in. So you drop the outer tie rod and you improve toe in only to fine toe out worse then before.
The longer tie rod sleeves make improvement more linear. Meaning that if you correct toe in toe out is also improved.
I compromised and ended up with .007 over a full 7 inches of wheel travel.
I believe in soft springs for a good ride and heavy sway bars to keep it flat on the corners.
All of us should be correcting bump before we loose control or again just drop in 550 pound springs and that ties the suspension down.
I get on a band wagon when it comes to pump steer so just ignore me.

 

Our cars need LONGER tie rod sleeves to improve bump steer so adding a longer one is a step in the right direction. That is the good thing.

Our cars do NOT need a shorter tie rod which increses bump steer.

So you take one step forward with the longer tie rod and one step back with a shorter one.
You have made no progress forward and actually one wheel will take more of the toe change then the other one .
This is not a good thing.

 

This is a poor picture but all I could find on short notice.
Notice the lowered outer mount location, they are just solid stock welded and bolted to the stock location but dropping the outer tie rod a couple of inches and 3 inche longer tie rod sleeves

 

The kits use both the inner and out tie rod mounting holes so it shortens the length of the steering arm slighlty cause and increased turning radius. They do use the stock outer tie rod ends but they don't go far enough. You get a slight decrease in bump steer but no adjustablility.
It can be done alot cheaper and with totally adjustability but you do need to replace the tie rod sleeves with inexpensive coleman racing sleeves and outer rod ends instead of tie rod ends.

 

Thanks Norval:
Makes sense.
How did Dodge solve the bumpsteer problem with the viper?
Seems like as long as you have tie rod sleeves that are fixed to the car and a wheel that moves with the road you will have bump steer problems.

 

Actually corvettesteering recommends that you source a manual drag link, they feel it is better than modding the PS drag link. I am very interested as I have this kit sitting in my shop as well as a manual drag link that will be retrofitted. I'd bet that changing your mounting position has altered the pitman arm travel.

 

My car only has .007 toe change over 7 inches of suspension travel but I did spend time using the proper bump steer gage 4 different tie rod lengths and matching center links plus a stud and lots of washers to find out what the car wanted.
Cars are built with what length and slope fits. So what if you have a little bump steer for the average normal person. The only ones getting into trouble are the high speed drivers where a inch or two of toe change can get you killed.
The viper was designed around the steering. First get rid of bump and then place the other components.
I can get rid of nearly all bump in our corvettes in a matter of hours but it does involve changing a few parts. Tie rod length, slope and drag link.

 

Norval, I assume that you used longer tie rods. What did you do for a new center (drag) link? Is it from another car, a modified Vette link or a custom? Can you tell me the length of your tie rods?