Is there an easy, cheap, and safe way to decrease the turning radius on a 96 Bronco with the stock D44 TTB? Tight trails are a pain.

 

Just making sure. Did you mean increase?

 

If by decrease, you mean to make the turing radius smaller, then one way is to go with smaller tires. Or you could go with an offset wheel to place them a bit further out so then you can adjust the turn stops more. Just a couple of options...or just buy a Jeep. (Did I say that out loud?)

 

The Bronco already has a very good turning radius for its size....

Anyhow, start with the turning stops, and when you get rubbing then you need to decrease backspacing, or use narrower tires. For tight trails, the much narrower Bronco II, (or a Jeep) would be a better fit.

 

Considering that the turning radius on the fullsize Bronco was designed by Ford engineers to work well on trucks as long as F-150 longbed, crew cabs (the LONGEST frame in the 1/2 ton F-series line), the Bronco ended up with what amounts to a phenominal turning radius right off the showroom floor. The stops on the knuckles can be trimmed a bit but wheel backspacing and tire diameter are still the biggest obstacles as already mentioned. If you watch the steering on a Bronco when the wheel is "hard over" getting much more out of it is going to be a challenge especially when you consider that getting much tighter is gonna start to bind the U-joints at the knuckles anyway! Heck you can feel them binding a little bit in hard-over situations even with the OEM steering settings.

Needling a fullsize truck down a trail that has never seen anything larger than some silly little CJ, TJ, BlueJ, whoJ, anyhow... its still gonna be a challenge and you are gonna be cutting your own path a bit. I stuffed my 92 down a trail that was barely big enough for the early Bronco's running the trail with me to navigate. It was a "one way" trail so we had to find a clearing ans turn around. The guys in the EB's were really happy I was along... I had made the trail wide enough to allow them to begin cutting it for two-way traffic!

 

I'm amazed at the turning radius of the FS broncos - its better than my little Land Rover 90 so I wouldn't complain too much.

 

I did mean decrease the turning radius (or increase the angle.)
Thanks for all of the replies. I'll take a look at the stops on the knuckles. I'm only running 31x10.50s, so there is quite a bit of clearance right now. I use my Bronco to pull my somewhat large travel trailer and haul around a family of six, which isn't easy or even possible in the littlier vehicles. I used to have a Scout II which performed admirably for those types of purposes and had a smaller turning radius than a CJ-7, until it was stolen and who knows where it is and what it can do now. I agree the Bronco has a very good turning radius straight from the factory, especially for a full-size, but I miss that Scout II for whipping around corners on trails and even u-turns on the street in front of our house.
Thanks

 

My bad! the words "decrease the turning radius" is like turn the AC down. When a kid says he is hot, he will say turn the AC up... but as adults we will say turn the AC down. OK I get the words "Decrease the turning radius".