Front End Problem

1974 Dodge D100 Stepside. Last fall I lowered the truck by using the B100 van lower control arms and doing an axle flip in the rear. At the same time I rebuilt the the front end replacing bushings, ball joints, steering box, drag link, inner outer tie rods, idler arm and pitman arm. I had the front end aligned and it’s all within spec.
I have a problem with turning left and right. In both instances when turning the wheels the tires want to tuck under and at a point stop rolling. The truck actually drags the front tires in the turn until I begin to straighten out. Any ideas?

Ackerman angle. Yours is so heavily modified I have no specifics, but when I rebuilt the front end on my 84 in a factory configuration I accidentally installed the center link backwards. It acted much the same and took quite a while to figure out.

This brings back my autos days. Totally forgot about the Ackerman affect.
With the front end alignment dead on It makes me wonder now if the drag link is on backward. Just narrowing down the problem. I need to get a picture for comparison.

I got lucky and my son stopped by one day and happened to park next to mine. While walking up I noticed the difference, that's the only way I found it. My front end guy had it in the shop several times and couldn't find it - when I went back and told him the solution he had a d'oh moment and apologized profusely..

So what was your solution. I went out and looked at the drag link. I can’t see how it could be installed backwards

does he mean upside down? i have several trucks here i can take pic of if you need it.

Mine was installed end for end when I put it back together. This [/b][/i]was[i][b] on an 83 D150, and that's not your model so things may be somewhat different. I could see the difference when they were side by side, (correct vs incorrect), so I took mine out and end for ended it back in - and all was well with the world. I had the front end apart for several months doing the rebuild so that's my excuse - took me too long so I forgetted........ As I recall, (this find was around 5 years ago now), the giveaway was the stud/nut orientation of the tie rods/idler/pitman; correct they angled aft and down and incorrect they angled fwd and down - or vice versa.

I have a pic of a 75 set up. Mine is definitely off. First giveaway was the grease zirk. Mine face the rear, the truck in the pic face the front.
The pitman arm/drag link threads face straight.

Good luck.

Thanks, I’ll let you know

Got a diagram out of an FSM. Correct they installed where the threads face toward the front of the truck angled upward. Mine are installed where the threads are straight up. Obviously wrong. Either wrong drag link or it’s assbackwards.

here is picture of my 76 before it was taken apart. When I had different spindals machine to fit, I still put the steering back the same way.

Well, hate to admit I didn’t catch this but the drag link is either installed incorrectly or it’s the wrong link. I looked at several diagrams to include the one on the LMC site. Shows the inner tie rods are installed with the threads facing the front of the truck slightly tilted upward.

The tie rods on my truck face directly upward. I’m surprised I didn’t catch this. Surprised the tech that did the alignment last week didn’t catch it.

I’ll pull the drag link tomorrow and see what’s going on

If it's similar to the one in my 83, it's so alike from end to end the only real way to tell the difference is the angle of the bolt holes. The bare link is easy to reverse (as I found out).

Yeah, I’ll have it out in the morning and yes I agree, bolt holes should be the way to tell.

Got it fixed, can’t believe I missed it. Anyway just need to get the toe back in and all set. Thanks for the help.

Good to hear it.