DAY 4
EXTREME BUILDUP 2000 Project 1
RickRock's 1976 Scout II

Putting the axle under the rig isn’t as difficult as it may seem. The only problem that a person can run into is the placement of the new perches. The perches fit perfectly to the newly ground housing and we have free rein on where we want to put them. Because of the amount of lift the SOA gives to a scout (about 5.5”) we want to angle the output shaft towards the transfer case. The problem is that the lower U-joint and the upper U-joint must be within a certain degree of each other. The factory puts these angles equal to each other and recommends that they are within 1 degree. The theory is that any more than this will cause pre-mature wear and vibrations at higher speeds. So if the top u-joint is bent at a 14 degree angle, the bottom one (or the one at the axle housing) should have between 13 and 15 degrees of angle. But with a SOA lift, these angles can be very high.

Luckily enough people have played around with these angles to find out that they can be up to 7 degrees apart without causing vibrations. So if the top joint must operates at 19 degrees, the lower one can be between 12 and 19 degrees and still not have vibrations. What does this mean for us? It means that we can rotate the axle housing toward the transfer case - this in turn means that we can get more flex without binding up the drive shafts.

Once we find out “sweet spot” with the U-joint angle, we are ready to bolt it under the rig. Here are a couple of pictures of the axle being in place.

The next step is to set up the steering. This is one of the major problems with SOA conversions. Possible fixes vary between lengthened pitman arms, Z-style drag links, custom setups or no fix at all. If you don’t do something your steering arms will bind up faster than you can say “DUHHH!” causing difficult steering, control issues, and breakage. If you use a Z-style drag link you could accidentally bend or break it. Drop pitman arms compromise your turning radius. Most of these will leave you with some sort of bump steer.

D and C uses an unconventional fix for this dilemma. We bypass all of the above and create an “extension” of the steering knuckle. In fear that someone will try this conversion on their own and compromise their safety, we will leave out explicit details of this part of the conversion. We will state that THIS TYPE OF CONVERSION MUST BE DONE WITH THE RIGHT TOOLS AND BY A TRAINED PROFESSIONAL…so please, just leave this to the professionals.

We are taking orders for this conversion. In late 2001, we will have new knuckles cast with the crossover steering arm as part of the knuckle.

The goal of this conversion is to raise the arm so that the link from your pitman arm to the knuckle is perfectly horizontal. This will give you your natural turning radius, no bump steer, and be as strong as you’ll ever need.

PLANS | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10