ntsqd's '71 Wagon

[sierrablue]

Looks almost like somebody just put an XJ shaft in it, unless they kept the rag joint side (which, why on earth you'd do that, I have no idea)--usually the XJ mod is to eliminate the rag joint and put a u joint on the other end (at least the ones I've read about)...

That upper joint is notorious on the XJ forums for causing slop. A lot of them go to the ZJ shaft, since the ZJ shaft is a 3/4 ton type part, and slips right into place...

You can get the shaft without pulling the wheel or the column if it collapses properly. And if you're replacing it and not attached to it, you should just be able to cut it...

(I may or may not have had to mess with the steering shaft a few times, and done WAY too much reading on how to mod it in 2020 when I was bored out of my skull...)

[ntsqd]

The guy that I bought it from eliminated the rag joint with a spacer and some welding. Welding in steering needs to be be done with thought and care, and these welds were neither. I used to think that rag joints were pointless, but I've come to realize that there is a good reason for having them. However, I'm not a fan of the lack of precision that they bring with them. The Borgeson U-J that I bought to fit on the box's input shaft has a vibration damper built into it. Hopefully it is more precise than a rag joint.

Heard back from Lee PS, there is basically nothing worth using in the steering box. Not even the housing. They're putting together a new whole box. Should have the pump back in a few days, the box will take longer.

I noticed that there is a collar of sorts clamped onto the lower end of the column's shaft. I might need to remove the steering for roof clearance, but I wondered if removing it would allow the shaft to be pulled up thru the column and out. If I do take the wheel off then it might come out into the engine bay as well?

[Yeller]

I believe the shaft will come out if you remove the clamp. On mine I had to reposition the clamp so the brush for the horn would connect and the turn signals would cancel, the spring under the steering wheel was holding it out nearly a 1/4. If I could manage to be home for more than 36 hours at a time I’d know, new column sitting waiting

[sierrablue]

I dunno if the shaft will come out the bottom--I want to say to say it comes out the top but I'd have to check the diagram in the factory service manual.

As @Yeller said, the clamp sets the preload on the column. I had some issues with the horn grounding out and the steering column binding in certain spots because it was set too tight when I got mine--otherwise I don't know on the function of it as I've never had to have it that far apart.

[ntsqd]

My time with Square body GM trucks taught me about short bolts subjected to high impulse loads. They either break themselves or they break stuff around them. The Square Body steering box attaching bolts used to do this. Autofab's solution was to use longer bolts with spacers and ORD makes a very similar kit. Even though the bolt strength is the same, the longer bolt can dynamically stretch further before the load on the bolt or the part(s) around it are over-loaded and fail. Can think of this as a 'shock absorber' function.

Looking at the box mount on the Wagon it is clear that something has been going on there. I don't know if it was abuse or poor design. It's been welded back together and had serious gusset plates welded on. The bolts in use when it came to me were reduced head 12 pt.'s that had a starting shoulder cut into them. But they are short, shoulder included they're not much more than an inch long. The two lower bolts were fairly easily accessed through holes cut in the gusset plate, but that top bolt wasn't fun to get to at all. The bumper bracket has a small access hole in it, but it is barely big enough to get a 3/8 drive 12 pt socket thru it, and it isn't well aligned (such a hole is a not very easy fabrication task!) so that made removing the top bolt that much more difficult.

I made spacers that weld into place and use longer bolts. The top bolt was a little tricky because it has to sit below flush to the side of the frame so that the bumper bracket will slide on and off w/o needing to remove that bolt. Temporarily these were threaded the same as the steering box and I used the original bolts to hold them in place at the steering box end while they are welded to the gusset and the frame. Then those threads were drilled out for bolt clearance. I only took one pic of this:

[Yeller]

Now that you are practiced….. wanna do an other?

Looks good

Someone had reworked my mount with 5/16 plate and did a nice job so I wasn’t too worried. Added assist as well so the shock loads should be greatly reduced.

[ntsqd]

I could, but I didn't make any drawings or notes. I'd have to wing it, again, with the truck close by. I can recall that the top bolt is 5" long and the bottom bolts are 3.5" long. Rarely have I encountered anything from GM that uses 7/16 UNC bolts, but these are that. Ford uses 7/16 bolts semi-frequently, but they are very rare in GM stuff so I found it interesting/odd that the Saginaw mounting bolts were 7/16.

I gave a LOT of thought to having Lee PS add ram ports while they had the box. I decided not to for simplicity's sake. I may end up regretting it, but the Snowball project has made me a little gun-shy. They can always be added later if it proves to be the wrong decision. I did have the PS remote reservoir made with an H-B return port on it.

Next up is fitting the Borgeson steering stuff. The answer to my question above is, No, the column's shaft can't come out the bottom with these SBC engine mounts. Maybe with the original mounts but I've no idea what those look like. Looks like what was there originally was one of those GM telescoping u-joints that are similar to a FWD "tripod Joint" in how it works. The pin for something like that was still there, as was a thin walled tubular spacer. Neither of which wanted to move, and with them in place the shaft wouldn't go out the top thru the clamp or the support bearings. Hacksall to the rescue! I opted to add a splined section to the bottom of the column's steering shaft for the connection to the upper u-joint. I was planning on cutting the column shaft anyway as I want to put the upper u-joint as close to the lower support bearing as is practical. My idle brain time is currently occupied by figuring out how I want to design the join of the splined shaft to the bottom of the column's shaft without increasing the OD such that the shaft can't be installed from the top. The column would need to come out to install the shaft from the bottom. That's not the end of the world, but I'd rather not if I don't need to. If only to reduce risking further damage to that escutcheon around the column at the dash.

[Yeller]

Steering box and transmission crossmembers on square bodies are the only places I recall 7/16” UNC being used, normally they even used the spacers like the steering box.

Having seen pictures of your motor mounts a 3 joint shaft definitely looks to be the right way.

FYI, my 3d printing/E.E. Wonder boy is working on that escutcheon on the bottom of the dash

[ntsqd]

Whomever installed those mounts did a clever thing. They used a spacer under the driver's side donut that moved the frame rail bracket down enough for the steering shaft to clear it on top. Only needs a U-J at the column and at the box.
Can barely make it out in this dark pic of the old intermediate shaft:


I suspect that the escutcheon will be a difficult thing to reverse engineer in CAD.

[Yeller]

Doing the high tech thing….. get close and tweak it until it fits lol. Figured we could print them hollow for about $.20ea until they fit then print them in something durable.

[ntsqd]

"PAD" then......

[ntsqd]

Got the column's shaft out. Both it and the Borgeson shaft are nominally Ø.75", so once finished the shaft should go back in like it came out.

The goal is to not have the upper u-joint hanging too far out into space below the column's lower support bearing. I trimmed the column shaft back a little and then turned a Ø.503" diameter on the lower end of it. The Borgeson splined shaft was cut to length and then faced in the lathe. A Ø.500" hole was drilled and reamed in the non-splined end of it giving me a .003" press fit to make it all self-fixturing. I then drilled the splined piece cross-ways to give me two rosette holes with access to the Ø.503" section of the column's shaft. In thwacking them together the timing of the splines got off a little bit, so that got corrected to align with the hash mark on the steering wheel end of the shaft. Need to confirm that the alignment is correct. This is important because the steering box input shaft really only wants that u-joint to go on one way and phasing these u-joints correctly is nearly as important as getting the phasing of a drive-shaft correct.

Next is to weld the splined section and the column's shaft together. Not too excited about a radial weld bead in torsion, but I doubt that it would ever be a problem. The rosettes are likely able to the do the job all by themselves, but that would leave a place where water could get in and rust.

Regrettably I didn't take any pictures of any of this.

[Yeller]

Hahaha you take pics like I do

[ntsqd]

OEM pitman arms, where to get one for a '71 with a Saginaw PS box? All of the listings that I'm finding start at '74. Like this one: https://www.fsjjeepparts.com/j5352278.html

Issue is that with this dropped pitman arm the pitman arm end of the drag link is lower than the end attached to the tie-rod. It shouldn't matter, but so that it's been mentioned, the linkage is all RockLaurence parts now. The bump-steer will be such that it turns left on a bump rather than right. Turning into on-coming traffic just doesn't seem like all that great of an idea to me.....

[sierrablue]

Pretty sure mine's the stock '74 style pitman arm, although mine may be a weird dropped one of some sort.

If you want a straight one, the pitman arms for a '78-79 F100/F150 is completely flat and Ik will work on the box (I've had one on). Didn't work right for my setup but yours is probably different than mine.

Bump steer is there (and with this steering design, always will be there...) but it's not terrible bump steer, at least on mine. It's minimal enough that a beginner won't go into anybody, and a pro, esp. who knows old 4x4s, will make it seem like it's not there at all. This is purely based on my experience with mine, but as long as everything's tight I wouldn't worry about it.

[ntsqd]

I don't know if I want a straight arm so much as just one with less drop.The '78-'79 F-100/150/FSB parts are now rare as best as I can tell. Easy to find dropped arms for them, OEM no longer seem to exist. I'm going to try the FSB forum, see if anyone has one.
I know for certain that those from my '96 FSB don't fit w/o filing the keying slots open, and may not fit even then.

[Yeller]

The later one should fit fine and be the right length. The early one is shorter, limiting your turning radius. The tie rod hole is small too, like a CJ.

Crown still makes the replacement stock one too so they are available easily and under $40

[ntsqd]

This one?
https://www.crownautomotive.net/Pitman- ... 52278.html
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/cwa-j5352278


I need some hose ends from Summit anyway.....

[Yeller]

Yes that’s it.

I need to revisit my pitman arm at some point. Used pieces I had laying around for the drag link and pitman arm. Running a CJ pitman with a welded up draglink, the pitman side is replaceable, but the tierod side is not, also can’t quite get the steering wheel straight with only 1/2 turn options on the drag link.

[ntsqd]

The RockLaurence stuff is stout. Likely a lot stouter than I needed for this vehicle, but I shouldn't ever need to worry about it. I'm not sure that I could have built it for the price. It is nice to have an actual hex at both ends of both tubes and not just a pair of wrench flats. To give some perspective, they require an 1-1/4" wrench, as do the jam nuts.

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