Steering upgrades

Can anyone here that has done the steering upgrades to their jeeps give some feed back to someone who is thinking about doing one. What kits do you recomend? How hard were they to do? Are their any out there that do not involve welding? So forth and so such?

 

I've upgraded my CJ5 with the heavy duty linkages from Quadratec, and they are pretty damned chunky. Did cause a problem installing them as there wasn't space to mount them under the springs as per the original, so I had them 'flipped over' and they now sit above the springs. Ironically this means that the bars are nice and parallel to the box (depsite my lift) so this should reduce any bump steer. No welding required for this mod.

I also splashed out on a completely new power steering kit from AGR (agaion through Quadratec). The box fitted in just fine, but the hydraulic ram required some carefully planning and fabrication to slot onto the axle. I'm not sure the ram is entirely necessary - but then why let common sense get in the way of a badass vehicle. There was no welding required to swap the box over, but I went a bit mad on the mountings...

Before, my Jeep suffered really badly with the existing power steering box - it was actually bending the chassis on full lock. So I'm also having work done to strengthen the whole set up at the front. I've had the mounting bracket modified to create a fourth fixing point, and am having 2 more major mods. 1 is a full stainless steel plate to sit across the top of the cross plate at the front - partly for strength and partly as a place to mount the winch. The second is a 'brace/skid plate/lock stop combo'! It'll basically be a full skid plate to protect the front of each shackle. On the top side we'll mount a brace to lock on to the steering box, and in addition, we'll mount a couple of adjustable stops to control the reach of the pitman arm. To be honest, all of this is way overkill for a regular Jeep, but I fancied doing it so what the hell...

Oh and I've also added a new flaming river tilting steering column, and collapsable shaft. There was some welding here as we needed to mod a base mount for the new column.

The whole steering upgrade has probably cost as much as the original Jeep did!!! Let's not go into the economics of this shall we? We are just finishing mounting the column and shaft this week so I should be able to let you know how it actually steers soon!!!!!

There are some pics in the Tech section of my website www.stuartaldridge.net/jeep

Good luck.

Stuart

 

what year is your jeep?
does it have the ross box? or saganaw?

 

FYI, I've uploaded some pics of my upgrades here:
http://www.stuartaldridge.net/jeep/pictures4.htm#SteeringComponents

hope this helps.

 

might want to box the front of the frame.

 

what hood lift struts did you use?

Thanks,
Chip.

 

Chip,

if your question was aimed at me, then I used a hood lift kit from Quadratec part #13027.00 - about $136.95.

http://www.quadratec.com/cgi-bin/sg...2&UREQC=3&UREQD=4&FNM=00&UID=2005030213253312 - if the link works i'll be amazed!

It was incredibly easy to fit, and only needed a few holes drilling. It makes the world of difference when working in the engine bay, as it holds it much higher than the OEM prop. Worth every penny IMHO.

SA

 

thanks for the quick reply,

Chip