EVERY Steering Mod! Tie Rod Flip! Drop Pitman Arm! etc.
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- Опубліковано 21 лип 2024
- Today I am modifying the steering on my twin traction beam (TTB) ford. I want to avoid getting any bump steer and so I performed a tie rod flip (TRO), I installed a drop pitman arm, I made custom tie rod connectors, and I installed a Ford Bronco steering box that goes on the outside of the frame. This 4 wheel drive twin I beam suspension is really coming along!
Now get out there and build something!
To see all the videos related to this TTB front suspension, click here:
• I Prefer Beams to Soli...
To see the full playlist for this build please click here:
• Cummins Explorer Offro...
#Explorer4x4 #DieselSwap #CumminsExplorer
Amazon Links!
Steering Knuckle Insert: amzn.to/3f4BquT
7/8" Drill Bit: amzn.to/3tp1Xvt
Offset 1 ton GM Tie Rod End, Driver (LH): amzn.to/3q6PKt6
Offset 1 ton GM TRE, Passenger (RH): amzn.to/3q5YSht
Standard 1 ton GM TRE, Passenger LH: amzn.to/31HblPw
Standard 1 ton GM TRE, Driver RH: amzn.to/3HDC3b4
Weld Bung GM TRE, 7/18-18 (buy 1 left 1 right): amzn.to/3zGEhn3
Reamer 1 1/2" per foot: amzn.to/33eKU4b
DD Steering U Joint: amzn.to/3Gbdhi2
Disclaimer: Thank you for choosing to use my Amazon links, doing so allows a portion of sales to go towards supporting the channel! I ONLY link products that I would personally recommend and that I myself have found useful.
Chapters:
0:00 What am I working on today?
0:49 How to fix bump steer on TTB suspension?
2:42 How to do a tie rod flip!
9:16 Custom tie rod connectors
10:03 What is the thread on Ford and GM Tie Rod Ends?
10:14 What is the taper on tie rod ends?
11:33 Adapting ford tie rods to GM tie rod ends
13:52 Installing a steering box on the outside of the frame
17:03 Custom steering shaft
18:35 DD steering shaft connector U Joint
19:19 Ford TTB tie rod flip results - Авто та транспорт
This is probably one of the most underrated UA-cam channels not only is he building a awesome rig but also filming and regularly posting geat vidoes about it too keep up the great work👍
I appreciate that! Thank you!
@@BuildSomethingAuto any idea where to find some tapered inserts for Ford steering components?
@@Matteo-xm6xo theres some amazon links in the video description 😉. I believe roughcountry also sells them
@@BuildSomethingAuto thanks man 👍
Damn dude I love the ingenuity. I also wanted to tell you can never use the excuse “no one ever accused me of being smart”
Learning what to do and what obstacles to expect! Good video! Great explanations.
Impressive work and very creative thinking. You're very blessed my brother. God bless you.
The part about the steering angles is so true. Every lifted ttb I have ever seen in the wild was improperly done. The pitman arms the lift kits come with are the wrong ones. The angles on the factory 50 ttb are really bad. Great work!
Thanks! Interesting to see you here! Thank you for your videos and forum posts. When I was first researching TTB the information on dana 50's was very sparse, your van kept popping up though which at least gave me an idea what the beams looked like.
In the end I took a measuring tape to the junkyard to figure it all out, but it was great to watch yours cycling to get an idea. 👍
It’s coming along well, keep up the good work.
Thank you Sir! Without a doubt I now understand the problem at hand much better!
Plus, I didn’t realize tapered inserts were available which allow me on focusing on other areas that I find to be more rewarding to tinker on! Thanks again
I did this mod on my bronco back in like 2005 when I was 16. I’ve never seen it explained and shown like this. I was living at home my dad thought I had lost my mind. Awesome mod btw
awesome video like the excellent analysis and process! great channel
Great video ! Definitely gave me some ideas for my bronco2 ! Subbed
It's a good thing heim joints have bolts that fit perfectly
If the bolt is a sliding fit,, rather than being an interference fit, it isnt tight enough to ensure the load is distributed all the way around the bolt. "Perfect" fit is subjective to what type of joint you need, see the machinery's handbook for dozens of different fits based on application. In this case a slip fit doesnt have the longevity of an interference fit.
You need an interference fit to ensure force along the tie rod is transferred 360 degrees across the entire face of the bolt, which is why tapered connections are used on stock steering.
Slip fit joints are fine if you dont plan on putting many miles on, but for street vehicles it develops slop at higher mileage.
I thank you endlessly. I've been looking for this topic everywhere and it seems there is not a lot of info about this. I'm building an offroad go kart and i wanted this suspension design on the front, but I was very confused on how the steering will behave with this suspension when it compresses and decompresses. Thanks again.
Happy New Year. Glad to see you healthy and back on the project. Great informative content as usual.
Happy new year!
I tapered my ford bronco and fit a dodge dually tie rod only about a 1/8 was tapered in the wrong way worked good the adapter are cool
Sick build
Alot of info in this video. Thank you
subbed. such a well laid out video.
Didn’t even make it one minute into the video before I thought “hell yeah I’m going to learn something” when you mentioned it was a f250 ttb with coil buckets like mine is. 🤙🏻
Great build! I’m looking forward to seeing how you fix the camber.
me too 😅. There's an easy way and a hard way, and while I'm hoping the easy way will be enough deep down I know it'll probably have to be the hard way.
You can use a heim joint. To stop the bolt from ovaling the hole. You will need to weld a double shear (a second contact point for the bolt)
Planning on putting a d44 hd ttb set up on my toyota, lots of useful info here
Sounds awesome! Send some pictures or videos when its done!
Love it dude, this whole build is very inspiring and has convinced me to go TTB from an f250 and convert to coils instead of straight axle from an older bronco or f150
Just a Point, welding on any part of your Steering can set up Stress, which can lead to cracking. Also those sleeves are designed to be used in a Quality reamed or machined hole.
Good point, the biggest consideration is what type of material you have. Since I bought the weld bungs and tubing myself I know they're low carbon which is weldable, whereas the stock components could be medium carbon which might have a cracking issue. You can still weld medium carbon you would just need to let it heat up and cool slowly, and possibly even reheat to anneal it.
The weld inserts fit well in the 1/4 wall DOM tubing. You wouldn't want to shove it in a random pipe though, tubing is for structural stuff pipe is for flow. Also for the record 1/4 wall is pretty overkill considering the stock adjusters were 1/8 wall at best 🤣
@@BuildSomethingAuto My point was directed at your thoughts of your statement of welding the tie rod bushings in.
I would recommend a swing set steering setup. Loads more work, but very strong and eliminates bump steer.
That would definitely be the next step up in terms of high speed stuff! Maybe in the future. For now I wanted to see how well a stocklike but upgraded steering system could work especially since I think it might be more realistic for what most people modding TTB would be doing and want to see.
Running and driving is the first goal so I can test, and then I’ll know what needs further upgrading 😄
This is such a good video, thanks! I wonder if you could also just cut and weld the knuckle too..
Thats an option! Thats more popular with people wanting to switch to heims rather than tapered ball joints (tie rod ends) since for heims youd often be welding it anyways to get it in double shear (bolt captured top and bottom).
For a racetruck thats a great option, but for this vehicle I wanted to keep it simple and cheap
I’m glad to see that I found you I’ve been having that steering problem on my 2wd f250 on a 6in lift and I go though tie rods like crazy I’ll put new moog parts and get it all aligned and in about a year I’ll have all kinds of slop in my steering one question what are those inserts called
Theyre called steering knuckle inserts. Ruff stuff makes some, but heres a link to them on amazon (note this is an affiliate link)
amzn.to/3f4BquT
Id recommend grabbing a drop pitman arm while youre at it especially if you have 6” of lift 😅
Just found you you. Nice vid, very informative. Well done. When you said your partner, I was relieved to hear it's a her lol.
Thank you for the compliment. However i’ll warn you now before you get too invested that if her being a he would have made you uncomfortable then this may not be the channel for you.
@@BuildSomethingAuto
Oh I see... Well I won't judge your personal life. Cause I believe you can still be nice a person and of course very informative on topic. I'll watch some more content. Thanks for the heads up.
Would high steer help fix some of that steering angle as well? As in making a mount that is on the upper section of the knuckle
Yes that woukd make a big difference. Most histeer setups Ive seen use heims so if its a daily driver youll have to remember youll be switching those out more often, but for a dedicated offroader or more of a racecar histeer would be optimal.
Adapter like that really needs to be built from single piece.
What, you dont trust my welds? 😂
What makes you say that? It’s super overkill compared to stock IMO, at least twice the wall thickness on the body and even thicker than that on the bungs. Grinded a bevel before welding for full penetration as well.
@@BuildSomethingAuto No I don't, I just hope those wont kill somebody else too when they disintegrate. You seem to have acces to lathe, it's just stupid not to make it from one piece.
@@eurobeatmachinist732 What I'm asking is what specifically about these connectors makes you think they'd be weak? You must have a reason these look weak to you, let me know what it is! However I'd recommend taking a closer look at the stock ones, you'd realize very quickly how much stronger these are than them. Many a steering setup has been built exactly this way.
To do it on my lathe I would need to turn large internal metric and SAE threads in both right and left hand. In this case it's cheaper for me to buy the bungs then even buy the tools I'd need to do this.
Besides, I'm a better welder than I am a machinist. I can do it better this way. If you have the tools and are more comfortable turning internal left hand M22 threads on a lathe than welding in a bung then that's great, build yours on the lathe!
half-truths in advertisement. 4 inch overall measured from highest to lowest measured distance on aftermarket pitman. in other words there saying the factory oem part is a 2'' drop and there's is a 4 inch ? idk thats stupid
Cons- TOE IN.
Normally the toe isn't really affected since you have enough adjustment in the tie rods to fix that. Because of the steering box being moved I did eventually have to extend the tie rods even further to get the toe and steering angle I wanted though. The real con to lifted TTB is the negative camber, not the toe 😅
Swing set steering
Certainly an option! A little more hardcore than what Im going for right now but who knows maybe I'll get the go fast itch one day 😅
I have a drop pitman arm, and i think reversing the tie rods would solve my steering, however, i noticed one ttb arm looks to be a different angle than the other, what can i do? The truck is level, and was measured in level ground
That could be true, the TTB members are different lengths (depending on what truck this is) so they may sit a little off from eachother. As long as the truck is level side to side I wouldn't worry about it. Either way getting the steering closer to the same angle (tie rod flip) can only help even if it may never be perfect!
I see a video in your future in which you scrap this entire system.
I wouldnt hold my breath. There will be a video comparing TTB and solid axles though 😉
Could you have swapped the spindles side to side, turning them upside down at the same time?
I dont think I could have swapped the steering knuckles side to side, they arent really symmetric. The balljoints would be upside down (if theyre even the same size), itd lower the axle, and itd drop the steering quite a bit.
Its good to consider all the options though!
Not every steering mod! RHD swap with chopped and fabbed superrunner steering. 90s Ford engineers weren't very bright. So im fixing what they couldnt! I really like this channel but the computer usage is a bit odd for old skool gear heads. I just build, i dont use computers. A few google images get me in the ballpark then i use everything iv learned over the years. Great channel!
Fair enough! I'm trying to merge the worlds of engineering and mechanics and I'm hoping it still comes across alright. It's hard to know where the balance is between introducing a new perspective, and being just plain confusing 😅
I was wondering if a Ford TTB style suspension would or could be modified to wor8k on Rockwell 2.5 ton axles? If it could potentially be done, how would it need to be done? Thanks
The rockwell's are solid axles, so you wouldn't really be able to do a beam setup with them. The largest beams I know of are these dana 50 beams I used from an F250. Here's the video where I modified these from leafs to coils to work on the explorer:
ua-cam.com/video/KC26KjKelwM/v-deo.html
And here's the video of me grabbing the dana 50 TTB axle from a junkyard F250 and compare it to the small dana 35 explorer TTB setup:
ua-cam.com/video/oyu8b0woLzk/v-deo.html
@BuildSomethingAuto Thanks, I just noticed that some people are using the TTB setup on trophy trucks, ultra 4 cars, rarely in rock bouncers, or rock crawlers. I just am focused on durability and you can't get much more bulletproof than Rockwells. I can deal with and even use the additional weight of them on the vehicle.
Good points. You got me curious so I went looking, it appears that the IFS setups in ultra 4s (and possibly trophy trucks?) uses a spidertrax center diff. Very spendy, a long shot from the $200 junkyard axle I used.
"Twin I-beams" the 2WD version is ubiquitous in 2wd race rigs, but it seems the 4WD version TTB is not really used that I can find. Part of the reason may be that it's harder to standardize, the beam carries the diff so it would require a different beam for every rig based on your travel goals. It also adds some unsprung weight because the diff is in the beam. The advantage though is that it's built like a ford 9", high pinion makes it strong. and it's cheap.
I think it's a very good value setup where you want strength and handling, all while being cheap. If you have unlimited money like the racers, then custom aftermarket IFS like spidertrax is better, it's just spendier. the 2WD version, twin I beams, manages to get huge travel all while being cheap/easy to fabricate and strong, it's only once you add the drivetrain components that it gets a little more complicated.
You said that you had to stick with the GM tie rod end due to already drilling out the steering knuckle, but can't you just drop in a tapered spacer to fit a Ford tie rod end? Wasn't the drilling really so you could put the tie rod end in from the top, to get better alignment of the steering tie rod and the TTB arms? Great series! Keep it up.
Fair enough, I definitely couldve gotten a sleeve with the smaller ford taper. I guess I was also biased towards wanting the stronger GM TRE’s and had already bought them 😅.
The other advantage was that custom connectors let me change the length to shift it over a little to match the steering boxes new location, I didnt discuss this as much as I probably could have in the video.
My question is where did you get the metric tube bungs? I'm doing this identical project steering wise and would like to not have to order it from the UK
It was an ebay seller and came from the UK. If you're willing to spend a little more Mcmaster sells the tap, so you could thread your own but if I recall it was kinda expensive ($100 or so, you may need a left and right hand tap).
Mcmaster also has the correct nuts so you could weld some nuts on a tube, but I personally wanted more threads than that for steering stuff. Maybe 2 nuts stacked on each other?
Best of luck! Let me know what you figure out it may help others as well.
@@BuildSomethingAuto I ordered from the same company. Tried seeing if a machine shop around here could make them and that was a negative. Only thing I'm running into is finding a pitman arm for an obs Ford manual steering box. Thanks for the reply!
@@JoshuaEltonYahoo You're welcome! If you haven't tried them my go to is usually ruff stuff and bronco graveyard. Good luck!
Hmm might save me alot of time just completely restoring my broncos Twin Ibeam and keep the Coyote swap simple
Broncos come with a dana 44 TTB front so its a lot stronger than the explorers, I think thats a great idea!
@BuildSomethingAuto True but it was mostly the bad rap of tires wearing out especially after lifting them that was making me think a 2015 f150 chassis swap could be a thing. Either route will be a fully restored frame.
So if you install a 4" lift should you get a 6-8" drop pitman?
I would. In my experience they're all undersized by about 2".
@@BuildSomethingAuto sounds good. I'm about to order one, after watching this video and eye balling it makes more sense. Just trying not to get in over my head with this hunk of junk. 😂😂
How the 4wd works?
It will work the same as on F250 trucks. The front driveshaft comes into the driver side member, then power goes through the differential where theres a u joint before it goes to both front wheel.
I dont have the right length driveshaft yet so I havent been able to test it, but Ill post a video taking it offroad once its working!
The drag link needs to be longer the pitman arm should be straight forward when wheels are when you turn wheel all way to right under load it will bind
I had the same concern when I made it. To try and alleviate the issue I made the passenger side connector a couple inches longer than the driver side. It works well enough that even spinning the steering input by hand it moves smoothly away from full right lock without binding. The video makes it look worse than it is its still about 10 degrees off of pointing DIRECTLY to the passenger side, at lock.
It is abnormal. Like you said it doesnt sit where stock would sit, but as far as I can tell it’ll work fine! Id rather keep stock parts if I can, but if I have to modify the drag link I will.
Why not just cut and turn the beams? Seems way simpler given your mechanical aptitude.
It will likely need the beams cut and turned. First I need to verify how much camber adjustment I’ll need.
For the record the steering mods I did here dont actually address camber like a cut and turn would, what I did here addresses dynamics changes in toe as the suspension cycles 😉. Camber will come!
So why wouldn’t you just buy a 6” or 8” drop pitman are in place of doing all that???
If you can find one and if the drops actually big enough then thats a fine option thatd be easier. However "hi-steer" like this also has the advantage of moving your tie rods up higher which gets them away from rocks and makes you less likely to damage them.
I mean, why wouldn’t you just spend the time and do it correctly and do a “double swingset “ steering. You seem to have all the tools and skills. Order up a couple sticks of 4130 and some 7/8 Heims . Zero bump steer , super strong .
Time and money mostly. Maybe one day if I endup not being happy with this, but for now this was a quick cheap solution to all the worst problems with TTB steering. I think its getting 90% of the reward for 10% the effort and theres a lot to be said for that 😅
Losing weight also helps get you a couple inches back, so my girlfriend tells me.
Great advice 🤣