Saginaw steering box internal stops

[jsudar]

I need a few more degrees of travel out of my pitman arm (mostly due to mismatched pitman/highsteer arms) so I'd like to increase the travel of the piston in my saginaw (chevy 2WD) box.

I know the big cap in the end of the box controls the left turn travel, but what controls the right turn travel? The interweb tells me different sized snaprings, but I can't find a picture or diagram of which one it is. Anyone messed with this stuff?

Also where could I find the said snap rings? 80-90's fullsize GM F body cars are supposed to have an 87* swing from there box, but isn't the piston diameter smaller?

I would run a longer pitman arm, but I've already got one that's like 7.25" from a 79 bronco. I can't find a longer one.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

I can't think of where the snap ring would be other than holding in the 'center' cap. However if you pushed that back your valve on the other side wouldn't have the needed room? Let me see if I can find some pics.

 

[I Lean]

Increasing the travel of the box isn't really feasible. AFAIK the travel of the piston is limited by the cap (like you said) and the casting between the piston and valve section of the box. It MIGHT be possible to machine it deeper, but the amount you'd gain would be very minimal.

So, that leaves you with a longer pitman, or shorter knuckle-side steering arm.

 

[Tacoma]

There's no snapring that will help... I've been through 4 of these in the last month..

If you need a shorter passenger side 60 arm, I have one. seems it was manufactured w the holes too close together. I would say its about an inch short... I'll compare to my shiny new ORD. Arm if it stops snowing.

Yes, I'm pissed.

 

[bryson]

So, that leaves you with a ..... shorter knuckle-side steering arm.

If you already have the longest pitman arm available, I see no other options.

 

[jsudar]

I just found an extra steering box in my pile of junk. I'll tear into it and see what I can find.

I found a chart on a hotrod site that shows the available rotation from a bunch of different muscle cars. They ranged from 50* to 87* so there has to be some sort of adjustment in there. The box castings were all pretty much the same, I think, so that's why I was asking.

 

[jsudar]

I tore down an 89 fullsize Blazer box today before work and there are no snap rings. The piston bottoms against the case at the top and the end cap at the bottom. I guess the adjustment Lee MFG. hinted at was only for boxes that had less than 87* of range.

I could probably machine down the end cap and then machine down the top of the piston. There is enough meat it wouldn't hurt either one, but I could only take off an eight of an inch at most. Any more than that and I think I will have gear mesh problems between the piston and sector shaft. That might not be enough though.

I measured my pitman arm-- it's 6 3/4" long center to center (79 Bronco.) It's fighting a high steer arm that is 8 3/4" from center to center of the trunnion. Does anyone know of a longer pitman arm than that? Don't Waggy's have really long arms?

I guess if I have to, I can change my high steer arms, but this will make it my third set.

BTW is anyone else using Ballistic Fab high steer arms? If so, what pitman arm do you have?

 

[I Lean]

6.75" is pretty long, you aren't likely to find a longer one. The only one that comes to mind is a Scout pitman, they're ridicu-long.

A shorter steering arm is probably what you need.

 

[Tacoma]

I've got a set of short high-steer arms, but you can't put a tierod AND a draglink up there-- crossover or nothin'.

For sale cheap, lemme know if you want them before I turn them into really nice billet spring caps.

I need your number anyway.

 

[jsudar]

I messed around with that steering gear for about an hour and I determined it would be possible to take about 1/16" off the top of the piston and 1/16" off the bottom. You can't take any more material off the end cap because the piston could move down far enough to block the port where the pressure comes into the bottom of the box, so it has to come off the piston. The real limiting factor is that the recirculating balls start to fall out of their groove if the piston moves too far down; that and the gear mesh between the sector shaft and piston gets pretty weak. All this will net you about 1/4" to 3/8" more movement at the pitman arm.

So, yes you can increase the travel on a saginaw truck box, for those of you who care. Those numbers are playing it pretty safe, you could machine the piston more, but it would be at the cost of reliability of the box. It's probably not worth the case of beer I'd have to buy the machinist.