D100 with van LCA's headache

Hi everyone. I tried to find the answer on-line with no luck, so here I am.

My 1974 D100 has van LCA's and the tie-rods are angled upward quite a bit. I'm experiencing some bump steer, so I was wondering if along with the van LCA's, do you have to install the van steering arms that bolt onto the spindles and lower ball joints.

My thought is that maybe the van steering arms put the tie rods more in-line with everything else. (???)

One more note... The coil springs are original and are sagging a lot. I just bought new coils springs for a D100 having a 440 engine. The new coils are thicker that the original coils, so they might lift the front end enough to level out the tie rods somewhat. My drivetrain now is a 5.7 Gen3 Hemi and 46 RE trans.

Do you have to install coil springs for a van when using the van LCA's?

Thanks for any help!

I know nothing about this swap, but remember these two earlier posts, have you seen them? There may be some info in 'em.

how-to-lower-your-1972-1993-dodge-pickup MEGA thread linky

lowering-a-d100 linky

Why the mega thread isn't stickied or at least in the 'best of' section i don't know.

Hope this helps........

Thank you. I will check it out asap, so my head will stop aching. Ha! Ha!

It seems like some of the Dakota steering arms and / or spindles will fit on the full size trucks. No idea if those would help with your bump steer issues. I think those Dakota arms are shorter, which should give a faster steering ratio.

If you find a solution to the bump steer please let us know. I am interested in lowering a truck.

Thanks. The Dakota parts sway sounds interesting! I just finished installing the new coils springs for a D100 with a 440 engine. The are the same length as the coils I removed, but the coils are thicker. Wow! They are made in Sweden, and only cost $102. Well, they fixed all the problems! They raised the front end about 2", so the control arms and tie rods are level with the ground.

No more bump-steer, and no more ball joints binding. I ended up with too much positive caster, and too much toe-in. I will perform my "world-famous" home alignment job, after a quick nap. The truck sits level now, and rides great! It handles better too! More importantly... NO MORE HEADACHE!

Dakota steering arms are shorter than a full size. The steering arms on the Dakota dropped spindles are shorter than the stock Dakota arms...and they are cast as one assembly as opposed to the stock arrangement where the arm bolts to the spindle. Nearly useless knowledge I put together 20 years ago...crikey! has it been that long???
If your new coils raised the truck 2" you basically defeated the purpose of going to the van LCAs. Just an FYI for anybody reading along.

Cheeto, that was my thought as well. I was looking into lowering my D100 as well. The van lca's only net you 2 1/2 to 3 inches max. The heavy springs negate that.

this is why I keep a stock front end and cheat with stock front coils. on the d100/d150you can find a 12" or 11" stock replacement spring. I swap in a 11" if it came with the 12" coil. with the stock sway bar and stock ride highet with 11" coils it will clear the swaybar end links by 1/2" clearance. if you have ever snap the bolt off endlink clamp and look for that "hens tooth" replacement piece or just weld a bolt on fix you can appreciate a stock front end for street duty.

for my 440 truck to lower the front and beef it up some for the BB and handling, I gather up some D-350 lower control arms larger pocketed LCA larger BJ larger mounting bolts larger steering arm bolts.

idea is to drill frame mounts out for the larger bolt mounting LCA easy to doo.

next is take the lower BOLT on steering/BJ arm with the 2 larger 3/4" bolts and the d-150 upper 1/2 of spindle drilling the bolt holes out to 3/4" and bolt on the larger BJ/steering arm to it. ( I figure this is better than reming the Bj hole in the d-150 lower steering arm as it is less beefy)

then use the d-150 12" coil spring it the pocket. (talking with the frontend shop, they said it would lower it and still align to specs)

swap over the d-350 center link/tie rods/idler & pitman arm adding a borg shaft.

then the d-350 swaybar is bigger diameter and shaped different bolting to LCA and not strut rods

so you get a beefy stock swaybar with a larger beefy pocketed TRUCK lca with a larger beefy BJ/steering arm with a stock d-150 12"coil spring to support the weight/handling of a 440 in a 1/2 ton chassis and it aligns to stock specs.

Steve- I am only missing a couple last small pieces for this conversion you can have it if you want it. with that newer hemi, that's what I would do. text me!

Cool post good stuff to remember, is the 350 van stuff the same as truck?

AFAIK...No cars are cars, trucks are trucks, vans are vans as far as LCAs

I have stuffed a d-350 coil into a d150 non-pocket LCA to lift the front for a 2x4 look. was a hella job getting it compressed, beat in there, bolted together. but it did let me run a 255/70/15 up front. problem was a-arms sat at "full droop" and wacked on the bump stops pretty hard...but it would soak up some bumps when off-roading rather nicely but the rebound whack was there. after a yr of that I noticed the factory weld cracking/breaking/ripping the LCA mount on K-member off due to spring pressure and abuse off-road.

that's why I got to brainstorming with the tech that ran the alignment rack. we put my d-150 on the rack and had a look with D-350 parts in hand. so mix the lower d-350 and the upper d-150 components will use stock specs for alignment would work... or close enough

using the d-350 tie rods/center link and LCA/steering arms it is almost a stock d-350 frontend anyways.

we brainstormed the 4x4 chassis gasser replacing the front diff with a tube axle with 4x4 knuckles/steering making a 2x gasser truck - stock alinement specs for it as well on one of my truck projects.

I don't know if this will help you or not. But several of the guys experiencing the bump steer issue on the van LCA swap also took the time to replace the other components, such as the center link. The center link can be installed 180 degrees flipped, and it will look correct, and even take an alignment. But if that center link is flipped you will get bump steer.

I just don't understand this whole "lowering"thing in the first place

Insert practically any hobby in place of "lowering" and you'll find people with the same thought somewhere.
Different strokes for different folks.