turning radius worse than a school bus

[jiggityjoe87]

As the title indicates my newly acquired 70' suburban has a terrible turning radius. Now before you say "what did you expect" this goes beyond what anybody would consider a bad turning radius. One of the reasons I think something is wrong or missing is that the PO did a disc brake conversion from a late seventys pick up on the truck. I saw a thread that listed all the parts needed for the swap to be correct and I can't find that thread anymore. I just have a feeling that the PO might of not replaced some of the necessary parts instead just focusing on getting the spindles in there. So if anybody could clue me in on every single part needed to make this right please let me know.

thanks

[my67chevytruck]

does it turn sharply one way? if so , its possible that the pitman arm is not centered on the steering box.

as far as parts needed, this is off the top of my head:

UCA's/LCA's out to rotors. center link, inner/outer tie rods, steering box and pitman arm.

[fine69]

If you could post pics of the wheels turned to the left and right all the way it might help.

[cdowns]

large oversized tires will cause a large turning radius

[jiggityjoe87]

the tires on the front right now are 255/60/R15 they are not excessive by any stretch of the word. I'm going to give the previous owner a call later and see if he replaced the pitman arm with one from the truck he swapped the brakes with. Do you think that maybe the pitman arm could be at fault? I will also check to see if the truck turns more in one direction than the other

[69halfton]

sounds to me like 67chevytruck nailed it with the steering box not being centered before the pitman arm was installed (is the steering wheel even centered when driving strait ahead?)... definatly a cheap fix (I like those the best)

..dont think the pitman arm itself would be the problem... even if the lengths are different, I don't think they would be so much different that you would have noticably less turning radius... never done the conversion so I don't know for sure..

[stealthy '69]

I'm currently working on puting 71-72 disks on my 69 and I had the same issue. The easy fix I did was to just cut off the steering stops on the lca's. Some say it's a bad idea, some say it's ok. All I know is when I see so many bagged trucks with none I don't see any issues. Just my $.02 though.

[jiggityjoe87]

well I went out to the truck and turned the wheel side to side and took the followint pictures. it seems like turning left is sharper. Turning right has been the main problem and by looking at the pictures you can see the difference. One thing to think about is when I tryed to turn the wheel full lock to the right the steering wheel wanted to pull back about a 1/2 turn. I was by myself so this was as far as I could get it to stay. Lastly what do those steering stops look like because I might also want to remove them

[jiggityjoe87]

and with regards to the centering of the steering box to the pitman arm. What would be the best and most accurate way to center the steering box to the pitman arm. As the truck sits right now the steering wheel is centered when driving straight, but then again if something is out of whack you can always take the steering wheel off and center it again.

[Beelzeburb]

I have the same problem with my Suburban. From center, with the tires pointed straight, I can spin the wheel 1 3/4 turns to the right but 2 1/2 turns to the left.
Last night I started removing the pitman arm with a large pickle fork but ran into a snag. My 4x4 pitman arm and steering box shaft both seem to be splined on only 1/4 of their surface. The rest of the steering box shaft is completely smooth, same with the arm. That would put a serious damper on my plan to simply rotate the pitman arm and be done with it.

I don't want to hijack anyone's thread, but since I seem to be in the same boat, any suggestions?

[dirtboy488]

Take the arm off, start with the steering wheel all the way turned to one side and then count the rotations to the other side. Divide this number in half and turn the wheel back that amount and you should be centered. You can also do this more accurate by marking one of the splines on the shaft that the pitman sits on, and then mark the box so the lines are in the same spot with the box turned all the way to one side. Count the rotations when it passes the mark on the box while someone else turns the wheel.

[fastom]

Make sure the pitman arm is on the right way. It will go on backwards and cause problems.

[FriscoDave]

The center link may have been put back in upside down. The PO of my truck did this when he converted to discs on my 69.

[jiggityjoe87]

just got off the phone with the previous owner and he said that he replaced everything listed for the disc brake swap. He also said that when he took it to the alignment shop that they did not center the steering box. So now what i need to know is how do you center the steering box?

[Beelzeburb]

I finally corrected my steering today. I couldn't simply pop the pitman arm off, turn the wheel and then pop the pitman arm on again because the 4wd P/S box shaft and pitman arm aren't splined all the way around like the 2wd ones are.
Instead, the only way I could figure out to correct my one sided steering bias was to lengthen the drag link. After a little fiddling I've got it near perfect. From dead center I've now got 2 1/4 turns left and 2 1/8 turns right.