Looking For How-To Torque Draglink at Pitman Arm

jtpedersen

jtpedersen

Caught the Bug
Howdy,

Would appreciate some insight. After the latest wheeling adventure Stitch's ('15 JKU Rubi) steering clearly loosened up a lot. With 50K miles, I'd already been seen signs of wear with bump-induced jiggling happening more often. After last weekend's adventures, it's suddenly happening all the time.

First step is to go through and check for tight fittings. There's one I just cannot get to...at least not yet...and that's the draglink at the pitman arm. There's just not enough space in there to fit a torque wrench. It looks like, if I dropped the pitman arm itself off, I could torque, then reinstall onto the sector shaft.

I've watched numerous videos, maybe 8-10 now, doing tie-rod and draglink installs. Everyone of them emphasizes importance of torquing...and...every one of them conveniently skips over the pitman end of the draglink. I suspect they're all skipping that because none of them are actually torquing that end.

How are folks torquing the pitman end of the draglink? Any video's clearly showing it? Odds are I'm just thick in the skull and missing something.

Help's appreciated.

JT...
 
Unless you're running a dropped pitman arm, the splines should be pretty tight and whatever you're feeling shouldn't be coming from it. IF you are running a dropped pitman arm, chances are you got one of the many that have sloppy splines and there is no fixing that being that the nut bottoms out before you can get a good seating of it.
 
If you still think you need to tighten up your pitman arm nut, pull your track bar at the frame mount and that'll give you room to work on it.

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What I’m looking at is not the pitman arm nut itself, but the -draglink- connecting to pitman arm. The pitman nut would be simple:)

I have clear movement in the draglink joints. I don’t honestly think tightening it will matter. Passenger end is just fine. Cannot get a torque wrench in to check the driver side of the draglink.



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jtpedersen said:
What I’m looking at is not the pitman arm nut itself, but the -draglink- connecting to pitman arm. The pitman nut would be simple:)

I have clear movement in the draglink joints. I don’t honestly think tightening it will matter. Passenger end is just fine. Cannot get a torque wrench in to check the driver side of the draglink.



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Ok - if I recall, that nut requires 75 ft. Lbs. and that can easily be achieved by hand. Just tighten it best you can and you’ll most likely be on good enough. Being that it’s a tapered stud, there should be no movement or loosening there.


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wayoflife said:
Unless you're running a dropped pitman arm, the splines should be pretty tight and whatever you're feeling shouldn't be coming from it. IF you are running a dropped pitman arm, chances are you got one of the many that have sloppy splines and there is no fixing that being that the nut bottoms out before you can get a good seating of it.
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My Rancho dropped Pitman arm seems to be a sloppy fit on the sector shaft. Sounds like this is common for after market dropped Pitman arms? If so, should I install a stock one?


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Ruvicon said:
My Rancho dropped Pitman arm seems to be a sloppy fit on the sector shaft. Sounds like this is common for after market dropped Pitman arms? If so, should I install a stock one?


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Not common, but it can happen. Make sure the nut is tight first. The issue is if you go back to OEM, you'll have to do something with the track bar to adjust its height because the draglink and track bar have to be parallel to avoid bump steer.
 
jtpedersen said:
What I’m looking at is not the pitman arm nut itself, but the -draglink- connecting to pitman arm. The pitman nut would be simple:)

I have clear movement in the draglink joints. I don’t honestly think tightening it will matter. Passenger end is just fine. Cannot get a torque wrench in to check the driver side of the draglink.



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Click to expand...

Yea like Eddie said. Just tighten it up by feel, which it pretty tight if you are just using a box wrench. When I swapped my steering box I remember not being able to get a torque wrench on draglink/pitman arm joint. I have a dedicated box wrench (with a slight bend at the head) in that size I keep in my trail tool box just for that nut. I also put a witness mark on the nut and tie rod end so I can see if it moves at all. Haven’t moved since the install and it’s been about 1 year.
 
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VeruGE*144 said:
Yea like Eddie said. Just tighten it up by feel, which it pretty tight if you are just using a box wrench. When I swapped my steering box I remember not being able to get a torque wrench on draglink/pitman arm joint. I have a dedicated box wrench (with a slight bend at the head) in that size I keep in my trail tool box just for that nut. I also put a witness mark on the nut and tie rod end so I can see if it moves at all. Haven’t moved since the install and it’s been about 1 year.
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So the Rancho drop Pitman arm was loose on the OEM steering box despite the sector shaft nut being tighter than crap. So I replaced the wornout steering box and machined a 3/16” flat washer to go between the Pitman arm and the lock washer and everything is nice and tight. Almost ready for my Zion trip!!

IMG_5137.JPG


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Ruvicon said:
So the Rancho drop Pitman arm was loose on the OEM steering box despite the sector shaft nut being tighter than crap. So I replaced the wornout steering box and machined a 3/16” flat washer to go between the Pitman arm and the lock washer and everything is nice and tight. Almost ready for my Zion trip!!

View attachment 303780


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My PSC box came with just a lock washer as you can see on the pic. In your case, maybe you needed that flat washer to offset things of a bit. I believe that connection is tapered so that flat washer might have helped with what you needed. Pitman arm nuts are tighter than hell and in general shouldn’t move. Glad it worked out for you [emoji106].
IMG_5605.jpg
 
Watching this float by, since I started the thread a couple months ago, thought I’d post a follow-up.

In my case, I elected to replace tie-rod, draglink, and steering stabilizer. I wanted something more robust anyway, solved that issue along with new joints. Happy there.

The crux of the problem was the steering stabilizer. It was just plane toast. Put a Rancho 7000 s.stabilizer in its place. Jiggles be gone. At some point I’ll replace the ballpoints as well, but that’s not a major issue quite yet.

Appreciated the early inputs.


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jtpedersen said:
Watching this float by, since I started the thread a couple months ago, thought I’d post a follow-up.

In my case, I elected to replace tie-rod, draglink, and steering stabilizer. I wanted something more robust anyway, solved that issue along with new joints. Happy there.

The crux of the problem was the steering stabilizer. It was just plane toast. Put a Rancho 7000 s.stabilizer in its place. Jiggles be gone. At some point I’ll replace the ballpoints as well, but that’s not a major issue quite yet.

Appreciated the early inputs.


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Click to expand...

So finally you just tight the drag link to pitman arm bolt with feeling?
 
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