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'77 EB Frontend Tips and Mods

Damnitboy1

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Jul 8, 2014
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I am in the process of doing a rotisserie rework of my '77 and would like to get feedback on some Tips and Mods for the Frontend and steering. It won't be seeing any rock climbing or a lot of mud, just a solid everyday driver that will take me where ever I wanna go. Any input will greatly appreciated.Thanks
 

duffymahoney

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What exactly do you mean? I ditched the stock sway bar in favor of the hellwig. I also went to GM 1 Ton steering with DOM tubing. Then drop steering arm.
 
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Damnitboy1

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That type of info is exactly what I'm looking for, is the y steering a better option or the T type linkages.
 

spap

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If your not doing any major off road the y steering is fine. The T steering is def stronger esp if you are running a locker up front, with a locker up front it tend to pull the front wheels in, folding the y steering into a pretzel.

But what tires size are running and what lift are you running is info needed, all depends
 

Bronc937

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Sep 22, 2011
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78
I did the extreme custom fabrications 1 ton setup on my '77 with 3.5" lift. Didn't have to do the drop steering arm. Tracks down the road great. Keep in mind the larger size of the tie rod ends will require you to have wheel spacers or more backspace. Or you could go with 17" wheels that overcome a lot of those problems.


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Apogee

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Nov 26, 2005
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I am in the process of doing a rotisserie rework of my '77 and would like to get feedback on some Tips and Mods for the Frontend and steering. It won't be seeing any rock climbing or a lot of mud, just a solid everyday driver that will take me where ever I wanna go. Any input will greatly appreciated.Thanks

What size tire are you planning on running? How much suspension lift?
 
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Damnitboy1

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I am planning on running a 33' tire with 10"wheels and a 2.5" lift which it has currently on it.
 
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Damnitboy1

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Well I say 2.5", the person that I aquired it from had it since it was new and in the early 80's did a hack job or as he said a custom lift, needless to say I have to replace spring buckets and shock towers along with radius arm brackets and the trac arm, so I'm just wanting to get it all correct and not say "dang I should have done this instead of that" if you get my drift.
 

jckkys

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Mar 15, 2012
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5,212
I put front coils in mine that lifted it about 1.5" or enough to provide an attractive stance with the front only about 1" lower than the rear. The stock sway bar works well with a Hellwig rear bar. The inverted Y works a lot better than the T type and won't bump steer like the earlier linkage. I try to keep the tire size sane, so 31s and 8" wide wheels are as big as I'm willing to go. This works around town, on the highway, and on trails that go somewhere. Obviously this doesn't include rock crawling parks. This has kept things breakage free for nearly 40 yrs.
 

blubuckaroo

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Jun 11, 2007
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Ford went to the inverted "Y" steering on these because of the same handling and roll-over issues Jeep was in litigation over. It handles better than the "T" type.
Problems with it occur when you add a front locker. The linkage just doesn't have enough structure to keep the wheels from folding them up when pulling hard.
 
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Damnitboy1

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If I could figure out how to get a pic on here I would let you see the hack job, It consisted of the original owner taking 2" flat stock and cutting the radius arm brackets off and then welding it back on the frame with the flat stock to lower it 2", the trac bar bracket was done in the same fashion. he actually bought the front spring for the 2.5" lift but didn't buy the shocks, so he welded some of the 2" bar lower into the shock mount to drop the shock. As if that wasn't enough, he put c bushings in and didn't know exactly how to do it, so it ended up having the EB driverside lean. Well I guess he thought it would be a good idea to cut the coil spring tower down 2" to alleviate this. And this is why I am just gonna redo the entire front end, including new coil spring towers and shock mount.
 

DirtDonk

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I'm with the others as far as the Y being a good design. But you're on the borderline of where I usually recommend changing them out to the earlier T style.

It's not your lift height. That 2.5" would be fine, if you included the dropped pitman arm and trackbar bracket.
For me though, it's the choice of 10" wide wheels and 33's. Will these be 15's still, or will you be going larger diameter wheels too? This can make the difference for me too.

I doubt you'll twist up the linkage from those 33's, just being on the street, but a typical 15x10 wheel can impart a lot of force/leverage all on it's own while driving down the road. So the extra flex of the linkage might make itself known to you in more wandering or slightly more vague steering inputs.

It's not a deal-breaker at this point. I would also normally tell someone to try it and drive it. After all, it's not like you can't easily swap it out at anytime after the fact. A linkage change does not have to be done at the same time as the other stuff.
But you will run afoul of a welded-on trackbar drop bracket needing to be cut back off, or at least modified if you do just the drops first, then change to the T later. That's a negative for doing it later.

So let us know what size wheels, with what backspacing you're planning. The problems start to magnify if you stick with 15 inch wheels that need 3.5" or less backspacing to avoid hitting the tie-rod ends. This negative offset (deep dish) look puts even more leverage against the steering linkage and, again to my mind at least, kind of ruins the good feel that the Y-linkage can have when used with more moderately sized parts.

Paul
 
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Damnitboy1

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The wheel choice for me is still on the fence for me, the 10" wide wheels I have are 15", but I just had them lying around and they are a negative offset. I guess I could just hold them and buy a set of 17"x10" with a zero offset and run 33's on those. I have seriously considered building my own with helm joints and chrome moly tubing, but I think the harshness in the feel might be a little off putting. Might just but a well padded steering wheel.
 

DirtDonk

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Going with Heims won't necessarily get you out of the interference game with the wrong wheel. Once you source spherical rod ends large enough to be reliable contenders for a 4-wheel drive truck with tires, you still have to contend with the close proximity that your '76/'77 steering knuckles put the arms and ends in.
The 17" wheels usually get rid of this problem altogether, so you can go with whichever type of rod end floats your boat at that point.

You should measure the backspacing of your current 10" wheels just to see where they stand though. If they've got more than 3 5/8" BS then you might have to use spacers to keep the rim edge away from the rod ends.
Knowing that up front might help make future decisions on tires and wheels.

Paul
 

tabyers

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Jun 15, 2014
Messages
379
Loc.
Indiana
I'm running 31x13.50r15 on 15x10, 3-1/2" back spacing on a Wild Horses 3-1/2" lift. I have a drop bracket and arm. Everything lines up great, except I have the '77 axle and y-linkage under a '69 and its pulled the gear off center with no adjustments to set it right. You may not have that same issue, but with the extra weight and strain of the wide set up, I plan on going to the Wild Horses y to t conversion. I can always find an excuse for extra strength and having all the componets with adjustable lengths could be very helpful in dialing it all in, especially if your lift is a little bit of a nonstandard set up.
 
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