[ckucia]

I've been toying around with building a rod using only modern parts - things I could find in my local junk yard - and fabbing the rest.

I know it's not traditional, but I think I could make it work pretty well and frankly, money's tight these days.

I have just about everything worked out, but one thing I'm struggling with is the front axle.

I know it's a bit on the ugly side, but I'd like to use the front axle out of a 2wd Cherokee. They're plentiful, dirt cheap, and come with modern, easily replaceable components and disc brakes.

Here's a pic of one in the foreground.



I'd strip off all the bracketry and set it up for parallel links, probably using a rear mounted transverse spring with Speedway batwings.

Here's a pic of one with the bracketry removed



Looking back at the first pic, this is a cross steer design and the steering box would normally be located in front of and above the tie rods.

Been pondering how I could steer this without having a steering box hanging out front.

Could I weld a tube onto the front of the axle offset to the driver side with bearings and a shaft and mount an L-shaped bell crank to it with a tie rod running over to the passenger side knuckle? That would translate to front/back motion and I could then run a more traditionally located box either on the frame rail or at the cowl.

I think this would work without any problems, but I've never seen anything like that.

What do you guys think? Have any better ideas?

I've thought about flipping it, and some guys have done that, to get the steering in back, but that would introduce a whole different set of problems, especially a reverse ackerman.

[ckucia]

Well, it looks like I'm not the first person to think of mounting a bellcrank on a front axle.

Here's an article that's doing it to a Jeep axle in an old Willys.

http://www.off-roadweb.com/features/...eep/index.html

Images - it's a little hard to tell what's what.

[ckucia]

Apparently this is somewhat common with the 4x4 crowd in order to minimze bump steer.

Another pic from another rig:

[oileaky]

Why not just make some steering arms that bolt to your spindles and stick out the back side , and set it up early Ford style ?

[ckucia]

I haven't obtained one yet, but looking at the pics I think the upper ball joint would get in the way of doing a close copy of the Ford, assuming I could find a place on the knuckle to mount it.

I suppose I could fab something up if worse came to worse.