vitara pas conversion steering shaft problem

[ojr1979]

Has anyone come across this problem whilst doing a vitara pas conversion before? I have drilled out the 4 plastic plugs on the steering shaft and knocked it back to shorten it as the vitara box is bigger,i have found that if the clamp isnt pushed as far back as it goes on the steering box it will hit the chassis and as you can see from the pic the angle of the steering shaft and the part that bolts to the steering box arent parallel.Ive not seen this before on any write ups and i have followed them to the letter they show everything lined up perfectly.Any help or advice? cheers

[Darrell]

Not sure what's going on there, this pic shows the joint with plenty of room around it.
The angle of the wedge looks ok, but looks like it needs tilting upwards (but obviously not possible).
The rubber joint will allow a little movement, but not what you have now..

Hopefully someone can give you a useful reply

[ojr1979]

I know it's weird I've done everything that the write up says made everything mm perfect! Just weird!
I checked all measurements before and after drilling even after the welding they were all spot on but after looking i think it is out of where it should be so the only thing i can think of is to use washers behind the box if there is an angle issue which im unsure of yet and maybe drilling out or fettling the holes in the box to make it sit up at the right angle???

[ScottieJ]

Is this using a wedge? Sorry I forgot to get back to you with measurements as I haven't had a chance to measure mine for you yet, what write up/pics/measurements did you use?

I found the template on Difflock to put the box in the wrong position so I modified it the angles of everything.

[ojr1979]

Yes Scottie it's the one from difflock

[ScottieJ]

I've got to take mine off tomorrow so ill make a better drawing, what I pretty much did though was to bolt the chassis plate to the chassis then the other plate to the box then got it all in a position where everything lines up, I also positioned the steering box as far forward and low as possible to make it better for moving the axle forwards and a bit of lift.

[ojr1979]

Ive found by looking that the wedge is actually in a good place,if i was to try and lift it up higher it would hit the chassis when turned.for it to line up i would need to have it very high and slightly angled which isnt a good idea as the pitman arm needs to move left to right horizontaly.I have everything else sorted on this conversion it literally is the angle of the steering column to the box that is my only problem now.I have also got the vitara steering column and i think the only way around this might be to modify the sj's steering column to take a double knuckle type thing if you know what its actually called? i think that would work???

[Darrell]

I think you mean to put another UJ in, instead of the rubber joint.
A few of the branded kits come with an extra UJ so I assume that's the best way to get around any misalignment problems.
As you say the pitman arm has to be in the right place.

[ojr1979]

Be nice if i could get my hands on just that uj without buying the whole kit otherwise im gonna have to cut the end off the steering shaft cut the uj off the vitara steering column and get them welded together???

[Darrell]

You can buy them in the USA, but they aren't cheap.
Don't know if one from the steering column can be adapted to fit but I don't see why not.

http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/index.ph ... nator.html