rack and pinion

Thinking about putting a Coleman rack on my mud truck. front axel is dana 44 1/2 ton. Any suggestions? are there different sizes that Coleman offers? does anyone have any issues with steering?

I used a coleman manual steering rack.. with aluminum tierods.. works good... but the slip shaft will require a lot of maintenance..

racinghabbit wrote:I used a coleman manual steering rack.. with aluminum tierods.. works good... but the slip shaft will require a lot of maintenance..

Any pictures of your set up?

i can get you some later.

Stuck between the idea of hydraulic and rack & pinion. I have a steering valve from a forklift but that's it.

the track bar and the tie rod bars are all aluminum. sorry it took so long to post.

I like that. How do think that would work with an independent 4x4 front?
I know the rack would have to be mounted from brks. coming from the frame.
It's on a stack 86 ranger 4x4.

Looks good racinghabbit. How was setting up the steering shafts, pretty easy? Looks like you put in a slip shaft for suspension travel, how much slip did you put in?

I used a Borgeson shaft 450024 , and where the set screw is to limit it we added 4 inches more of travel . and there is a support bolted on the cab and this support off the frame. every 3 races we tear apart the steering shaft and put fresh grease on it.  we have raced 2 years on this setup and had very little issue.

as of recent allstar started making shafts to . but I have not tried one yet. all52170,all52171, all52172.  was told it would be sealed better.

before the rack we had horrible bump steer. no completely gone.

coleman rack and mounting bracket they offer is welded directly to the axle.

Looks a lot less complicated then some of the others I've seen where they run them up to the front of the frame then drop down to the rack. I like it!!

68formalGT wrote:Stuck between the idea of hydraulic and rack & pinion. I have a steering valve from a forklift but that's it.

Go to www.megamudtruckparts.com and get the correct size orbital for your ram. I had a forklift ram on my old truck for a while and it was too small. Ended up giving me like 12 turns lock to lock. Got the larger valve and was at 2 turns lock to lock

kjett wrote:

68formalGT wrote:Stuck between the idea of hydraulic and rack & pinion. I have a steering valve from a forklift but that's it.

Go to www.megamudtruckparts.com and get the correct size orbital for your ram. I had a forklift ram on my old truck for a while and it was too small. Ended up giving me like 12 turns lock to lock. Got the larger valve and was at 2 turns lock to lock

Got ahold of them today, he recommended a 2.5" x 6" ram with my steering valve. I ordered it and some other parts, time to finish the front end up!

68formalGT wrote:Got ahold of them today, he recommended a 2.5" x 6" ram with my steering valve. I ordered it and some other parts, time to finish the front end up!

2x6 ram? that's typically what the smaller axles (i.e. jeep or Toyota) use. I ran a 2x8 ram on my full size d44. stepped up to the PSC 2.5x8 double ended ram for my new truck since I will be running it with the Mega Trucks in the 1 ton classes.

kjett wrote:

68formalGT wrote:Got ahold of them today, he recommended a 2.5" x 6" ram with my steering valve. I ordered it and some other parts, time to finish the front end up!

2x6 ram? that's typically what the smaller axles (i.e. jeep or Toyota) use. I ran a 2x8 ram on my full size d44. stepped up to the PSC 2.5x8 double ended ram for my new truck since I will be running it with the Mega Trucks in the 1 ton classes.

I think I had 7" of travel before the tires hit the radius arms. I guess of I built a regular ladder bar system instead of using the factory 79 arms I could move the arms in some and gain clearance.

And for the price of the ram if I move the arms getting a new ram and a new tie rod mount isn't very expensive.

Did you finish your set up? If so, post some pics