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I've had several requests for more pics of my cross over steering in the last couple of weeks, so what I've done is add a gallery with better pics. As you can see, you need a 2-wheel drive box to get the sector shaft verticle rather than horizontal like it is with the 4-wheel drive boxes. The other custom piece is the arm that bolts on top of the kingpin, but you can buy these all over now. The tubes are easy to cut to length. Just link it up with balljoints or heim joints (as you can see I prefer ball joints) and you're in business. I also added pics of my 72 with its little ol' 428cj
I was talking to a fellow mud bogger the other day and he had put hydraulic steering on his truck using column parts and valving from a John Deere combine, a two way ram, and powering it with an electric over hydraulic pump from a snowplow. It worked really well and wasn't robbing any H.P from the engine to turn a pump.
Hydro is pretty awesome, especially on the trail with rocks. Rocks is where hydro really shines over anything else. I've found that a good cross-over set up works great, even with huge Boggers in deep mud, and you don't have the same streetability problems like you do with hydro. I haven't seen an electric hydro pump on a 4x4 before, that would be pretty cool without the parasitic draw. To be honest though, I don't worry to much about the hp loss from my ps pump when we are pushing the amount of ponies that we are. But it all adds up...guess thats why they gave me a point against me for my electric fans when figuring class this weekend
Full hyd is great except on the street. Many of them don't self center very well and can be a handful to keep in one lane. But now that I re read Pro's post, I see he covered that.
Looks good. Now all you need is a tie rod over knuckle conversion and ram assist...
Yup, thats next week Well, okay, maybe a little longer it kinda depends on long I can make it before I have to do something different. I'd always planned on ram assist anyways, so I can move those pesky rocks out of the way using a tire and one finger on the wheel. Tire envy, lol. Boggers aren't all they are cracked up to be, UNLESS you have the hp to make them work; then they rule in the mud of course. They aren't so hot on the rocks or getting lateral on hills though. I'm swapping to Boggers on the rear only, Swamper up front. That looks like a prettys sweet EB by the way.
40 Mt-rs seem to be the hot ticket for rocks...other than the current Krawler craze. You might consider a rear Dana 70 instead of the corp 14. Little known fact, if you can find a Dana 70U you have a case that already looks shaved and has much better clearance than either the regular 70 or corp 14. They slide over anything in stock form. A guy was looking at mine on the trail and thought it was a Dynatrac, lol. The 70 is stronger and if memory serves, doesn't weigh much more. 'Course, 14s are a dime a dozen and you can always shave it (which seems necesary with those rock draggers). Darn tough axles those corp 14s.
I think I'm leaning toward the 14 bolt because they're dirt cheap and very available. But if I found a deal on a 70, I'd probably go with it.
I'd say that the 70 and the 14 bolt are almost evenly matched as far as strength. I work for a shop that does a lot of gear work and we see a lot more 70's than 10.5" 14 bolts. A lot of that could be due to the later model Dodges though. But, you just don't see too many of either of them fail. The 70 has the advantage in ring gear size, but I think the 14 bolt has a superior pinion support design. And they are as easy as setting up a 9".
A lot of guys are going with the HP 60's in the rear for driveline angles and rock bashing protection. But mine is built to do everything, not just rockcrawling. (You know there is more than just rocks up here in Oregon, you've run the trails.) So I'd rather sacrifice a little diff clearance to know the drivetrain is stout enough not to worry about.
Sounds like a good plan. There are more choices of locking units to put in the corp 14, and like everything in the chivy world they are cheap. I'll admit, I almost went corp 14 but wanted to keep my drivetrain all Ford...just one of those things. The 70-u sealed the deal, they are pretty trick units out of the box. No kidding about the trails, its not the rocks I worry about getting hung up on its the trees! The firebreak/rock trails seem pretty mellow up here, all things considered. The fact that my friends claim I scrape the wires on the powerline trails doesn't help
Last edited by proeliator; Jul 10, 2003 at 11:26 AM.