Caster and tie rod problem!

[capnron]

Hey, anyone else have problems with your tie rods jamming up because of the caster on your spindles? As the spindle arm moves up, the hiem end gets jammed and locks up. I was thinking of just adding a longer bolt and putting a nut with a pin thru it so the hiem can move up and down the bolt. Will this work? Thanks for any advice.

[Randy on a Stool]

Is your tierod angle too severe? I wouldn't let the heim joint "float" on the bolt as this would just cause movement. You certainly don't need any movement in this area. These things are short wheelbased and any "twitchiness" gets to be very scary at speed.
Sounds like you have more angle in the tie rod than the heim joint will take. Try moving heim joints to other side of pitman arms, or relocating steering shaft higher or lower.

[KiwiMike]

I foresaw this problem when I set up my front end, as the caster angle dropped the tie rod bracket on the spindle, which would have bound up the tie rod too much.
I opted to take all of the caster out, set 0 degree caster, but set the kingpin bracket to the back by 15 degrees, thereby giving me more room for ackerman.
I will put caster back into the kingpin by way of caster pills, this way it will be a little more accurate.
The choices you have are:
Cut the kingpin brackets of and reset them to a lesser angle.
Cut and bend the tierod brackets up on your spindle.
I wouldn't try to extend the heim joint by a longer bolt, washers or any other way. If this comes loose at 30mph, you are going to loose some skin at the very least.

[KiwiMike]

I had a revelation at work. There are a couple of other options you have.
Move the steering column back towards the set 1-1 1/2" at the top, this will relieve the heim joint bind.
Or just bend your ackerman plate down, this will achieve the same thing with minimum effort.

[capnron]

I made a small copper bushing that is 3/32 thick that seems to give me enough play for the moment. Now its time to mock everything up and see how it holds up at speed. The bushing moves the bolt head up just enough to clear the lip on the ball joint and allows around 20 degrees more movement. If this doesn't work I will have to cut off the spindle mounts for the fourth time and start over. (which I really really don't want to do again) but we will see!