The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk 65 chevy front end problem

I am the fairly new owner of a 65 Chevrolet LWB. I bought the truck as a project. While it has had some modifications, i.e. 400SB, 350 auto, 308 RE, A/C and many other mods, most of the work done seems to be done improperly. The most recent problem I have not been able to correct is the steering. The front end has been changed and I can't identify exactly what it came out of. It has PS and 5 lug spindles. My local alingment shop has lined it up but a problem still exists that we can't figure out. When you turn the wheel all the way left or right, the front end gets in a bind and kind of drags sideways. When traveling down the road and turning normal corners, no problem. The local shop seems to think the geometry is off some how or another. He suspects the pitman arm or idler arm is the wrong length or possibly the wrong one all together. Short of changing parts at random, I'm not sure what to do. Any help out there? All advice would be welcomed. Thanks.

Boy Lee ya askin a ? I think will only be answered with pics. need some serious pics of the workins ...get some good shots of the whole steering sytem from underneath maybe some one here will notice something amiss?.
you can get a Photobucket account for free all ya gotta do is go to the site an join..upload your pics and post a link here on the site.
hope this helps
Tim

Thanks. I'll get some shots and post them.

if you need, i can measure the idler or pitman arm on my 63 1/2 ton or 64 3/4 ton.

Hey that would be great! I would think the 1/2 ton measurement would be more accurate.

Thanks!

It would also help to know what was actually changed under there. Did they just swap spindles or other parts as well.
I know on my '63, which should have the same parts as your '65, when I turn full stop left or right the outside wheel scrubs pretty hard like it turned too much. The only thing I have done is lower the front end by chopping the springs. Of course that changed the geometry some. Don't know if it did that at the stock height as the first thing I did when I got it home was lower the front.

This may seem overly simple but.....

If the inside of the tire is rubbing on the frame when you turn the wheel all the way it will give the sensation of dragging sideways. This can be corrected by different rim offsets or wheel spacers.

well i got down and measured the '63. the pitman arm looks to be about 5.5" from center to center and 7 3/8" overall lenth. the idler arm is not in a single plane it is offset a bit. so it looks to be 6.0" center to center and 7 5/8" oal. i had to break out the 18" calipers to try to measure it. don't hold me to those #'s but looks to be pretty close. lmc catalog shows same part #'s for 63 and 66. good luck, hr

Hoggyrubber,

Thank for measuring. I'll check the length of mine and let you know how it turns out.

I appreciate your help.

no problem. stuff changed like that makes me wonder why people don't just leave stuff alone. well i am guilty of botching up a thing or two.

It appears that the spindals used to convert to disk brakes didn't have stops on them. The steering was turning too far which caused the tires to "scrub" sideways. We got it on the alignment rack and counted the steering revolutions, then compared it to another truck. It seemed to turn about 1/2 to 3/4 revolutions more than the model we went by. We checked the degree of turn (or radius) then built adjustable stops and welded them to the lower "a" arm. It's working pretty well now but could probably use a little more adjustment to stop it from turning quite so sharp. I think this solved the problem. The measurements that Hoggybubber gave me confirmed that I had the right parts, just someone that didn't have a clue changed parts without doing the job correctly or using the right spindals. Thanks for the advise. I'm sure I'll need more later.

Lee