spring over axel steering

[Christopher Eveland <eveland@domain.elided>]

Hi-

	I've got an 800 with a spring over (performed by the previous owner,
and not so well), plus about 1" of spring lift, and 1" of shackel lift. 
The springs and shackels are new, and offer quite a bit of hight over
the sad and leaning old springs.
	The previous owner had heated up and bent the drag link in order to
relieve the angle on the ball joint at the pitman arm, but it becomes
clear that this is a woefully inadiquate way to solve the problem,
because my pittman arm is currently 9" above the tie rod which means
that 1) the drag link isn't long enough, so it has a lot more left turn
than right turn, and 2) neither the tie rod nor the darg link are strong
enough now that they take some component of their load vertically, and
the tie rod has bent some as a result.  Anyway, I obviously need to do
something about this before I go to Paragon later this month.
	So far I have 3 possible ways to fix the problem.  What Bill @ Anything
Scout suggested is that I cut my current drag link in half, and have the
ends welded into a tube with an S bend in it.  The bends in the tube
could be gusseted for strenth.  The main problem with this is that the
bend in the drag link is very near one end of it, which would make it
hard to put in a slieve.  The other problem I see is that this is no
longer a stock setup, and its not clear that with 33" tires etc, that
the stock setup is really up to the job.  Clearly the tie rod isn't.
	The second plan, which a local 4x4 shop owner thinks is my best shot is
to make a custom new drag link and tie rod.  The idea would be take some
3/4" rod ends (which I think are called Heim joints, at any rate you can
get them from summit), tap a 1/4" wall tube for them, and have that
welded up into the correct shape.  This is the idea that I liked the
best, but the local 4x4 shop guy has seen the rod ends break when they
get a load that is not pure compression or tension.  He says the eyes
break off of the threaded rod.  Obviously I don't really want this to
happen on the freeway.  He did seem encouraged by the fact that you can
get chrome-moly versions of them, which are supposed to be 90% stronger
than the economy ones.  Anyway, looking at the steering setup on an 800,
there is only one of the joints that can be made to take pure tension
and compression:

               ___________o <---- drag link (imagine that its straight)
              /
    o-------o----------------------o  <--- tie rod
    
The drag link will exert some of its force in a downward direction,
because the connection with the pitman arm is above the tie rod. 
Therefore, there is no way that the tie rod ends will not have some
downward force applied to them.  The angle between the tie rod and drag
link is great enough that I don't think the drag link end can be
straight.  Therefore that end of the drag link isn't going to get the
forces lined up either.  The other end of the drag link (where it
connects to the tie rod) can be straight so it will be in fairly good
shape, however, it will still be off some from the bend in the other
end.
	The other problem that comes up is that the tie-rod/drag link
connection is on the front side of the tie-rod, which means that the
downward force on the tie-rod will cause it to twist.  In the stock
configuration, witht he drag link and tie rod parallel, this doesn't
happen, but I think with the steep angle this contributes to the
steering wandering.  (which it does quite a bit of at the moment)
	The 3rd solution would be to get a scout II dana-44, which I _think_
has the drag link connect directly to the knuckel on the axel, which
would solve the tie-rod problems, and reduce the angles on the drag link
as well.  Is this true?
	I think I'd rather keep my dana-30 at the moment, because resources are
limited, as is time.  So do you think the Heim joints are safe?  Are
their some other ends that I could use from something else?  What
solution would you think is best?  And where can I get info on swapping
in a D-44, if thats what it comes to?  Thanks for the info,

-Chris