Need some help with a pitman arm

[77bronk]

Well changed out the old suspension to wild horse 2.5 lift springs and bilstein shocks . All new bushings ect. When I finished took for a drive and when I went hard left and hit a bump the pitman arm started to hit the drag link . So I was like well shit . I guess I need a shorter pitman arm since I went down an inch with new lift . Got a stock arm and now the steering stabilizer is going to hit the frame and I don't even have it tight yet . So I guess I need a arm in between stock and the 3 in drop I took off? Who selling a 1.5 in drop arm ? Or is there something else I should do / try??

 

[gr8scott]

Convert to earlier style t-type steering linkage. I know, not something you wanted to hear...

 

[The Mule]

I just converted to a T style on a 77 and went with the 3 way adjustable. Had wicked bump steer so I ended up centering the steering box and putting a drop pitman arm on to get everything parallel. One of the best handling bronco's I've driven. It has the BC 2.5 lift.

 

[77bronk]

I would rather. Not have to do that. I also noticed the end of the steering stablizer hit the pitman arm when I turn hard left . I see the mount on the tie Rod . Can that be moved in to give a little more clearence ? If the tie Rod end was a little smaller it would clear. I'm almost tempeted to shave a little off and see if hat works but don't want to make it weak and fail ? Any other ideas ?

 

[Whoaa]

To directly address what I see in your pic's, 3 different issues:

1) It seems like you can change the orientation of the pitman arm in the splined shaft. Sometimes hard to tell just by pic's, but it appears that the pitman arm is clocked and rotated to far aft that it may be causing the upper most portion of the pass-side tie rod to bind when turned to the L. And this issues is exsaserbated because of the Y style linkage, and may cause interference issues when the suspension is compressed

2) Take off the shimmy shock and throw it in the the trash can. Often times these shimmy-shocks mask other problems which makes it harder to identify the true root cause of some issues. Additionally, the shimmy shock doesn't do anything "good" for the driveability of the machine.

3) Is this pitman arm fully seated on the splined shaft? In the pic it appears that the nut is not fully tight, maybe missing a thread?

I have been trying different tie rod styles of my application on my 77' with a 5 1/2" lift kit. In this pic I'm running a stock style pitman arm with the WH conversion T style tie rod setup. Seems to work well. However, I'm changing to a different style now, but for different reasons.

 

[77bronk]

Yea the stock one was seated . I don't think I had it off centered . If the stablizer was not there I think everything would work with stock pitman arm