I am trying to get my steering together, but nothing is lining up like it's supposed to. First of all I put my motor mounts right where the vega box should go in order to get the drag link parallel to the tie rod. I've got it clamped on there now in the best possible location without completely re-doing my motor mounts. But the major dilemma is that to get my drag link in the same vertical plane as the tie rod, the vega box would have to be mounted so that the triangle bracket sticks up above the top of the frame rail. The way that I have it in the picture is more like the way it is in the instructions but to get that to work, I have the drag link so that the steering arm end comes in through the bottom of the steering arm and the pitman arm side comes in through the top of the pitman arm. Is there something wrong with doing it this way? Also, I think the pitman arm that I got is not tapered because that is as high as it will possibly go on the steering shaft.
Looks like you're pretty close. Is you're chassis at ride height? Looks like you could use some more weight on there. Can you move the box up at all, looks like you've got an inch before it hits the motor mount. You can bend the pitman a little to adjust it. I used the Chassis Engineering mount in my brother's deuce. But that was a sbc not a hemi, big difference. your motor mounts are sexy. Here's a scan of the CE instructions. At least you can compare the dimensions with yours. And a couple pics of deuce chassis with sbc mounts. Everything is real tight on these cars. Good Luck!
I would get a pitman arm with a matching tapered spline and then see what things look like. Then I might see if this is a possible fix; http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=284828
You are fine as you are. The drag link does not need to be perfectly parallel, it will work fine like that and will not have any steering issues. As for the pitman arm, I have seen many Vega arms that don't go on very far until you tighten the shit out of the nut. The steering box shaft is tapered slightly, but I don't think the arms are. It takes quite a bit to get them into place, and a big ouller to get them off.
I don't want to move the box up any more because the motor mounts I made bolt in through the bottom. Right now the drag link is pretty close to being in the same vertical plane as the tie rod, but thats because the rod end that goes into the pitman arm is on top of the arm and the other rod end is going up from the bottom into the steering arm, is that kosher or is there some reason I would not want to do that? Picture on left is steering arm end right side is pitman arm side. If you put these upside down (pitman arm side), will the grease drip out or something? Thanks for the help.
Also, I ran that nut on the pitman arm shaft up on there so tight that I destroyed the nut and had to buy a new one. thats as far as that pitman arm will go.
You can run the tie rods "upside down" although I would agree they look better on top. It looks like you could heat and bend your steering arms down to put the tie rod on top. Also,, I don't know what you mean when you say... "I don't want to move the box up any more because the motor mounts I made bolt in through the bottom." It looks like your mm are welded to the frame. Do you mean the cushion bolt goes in through the bottom? That's fine, push that box up as high as you can. You should still be able to get that cushion and bolt in. Even if you have to drop the box to do it, it's not that big a deal. Once it's all together you won't have to worry about it again. I would still weld a gusset between the frame and the box mount to take some flex out. See the Chassis Engineering sheet.
Yeah I meant the bolt that goes up through the cushion into the upper part of the mount. That chassis engineering mount looks pretty slick. Although I don't know if it would gain me any more clearance as far as the motor mounts go. The top bolt on the vega box would still have to be in roughly the same position. I'm definitely going to gusset the bracket, I was also thinking about tracing around the top of it and cutting out the boxing plate so I could flush mount the vega bracket with my side rail. That might gain me a little clearance between the top bung on the vega bracket and my cushion bolt. Thanks for the info.
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