That’s awesome. And I would totally go for it, til I saw the price tag. $230 is too much for a brace. At present, with my front end sitting at about 1.5” up from stock, I don’t even notice. I ordered some tie rod sleeves, but feel like the linkage would benefit a lot more from braces as soon as I mount the new wheels. For such a heavy truck, GM definitely chose the easy way out going with minimum tolerances for some of these components. But i guess that’s just business in general.
Front wheels toe in under power... a lot!
- Thread starter nosole
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That’s awesome. And I would totally go for it, til I saw the price tag. $230 is too much for a brace. At present, with my front end sitting at about 1.5” up from stock, I don’t even notice. I ordered some tie rod sleeves, but feel like the linkage would benefit a lot more from braces as soon as I mount the new wheels. For such a heavy truck, GM definitely chose the easy way out going with minimum tolerances for some of these components. But i guess that’s just business in general.
camaroz1985
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Tie rod sleeves are not going to change anything. They will not flex to the point that would give you 3" change in toe, they would be permanently bent. Have you ruled out worn components? It sure seems like maybe bad pitman or idler arm (or both). Jack up one side and try to turn the wheel by hand. If it moves look for anything that is flexing or turning out of the normal plane.
Yeah, there’s a lot of movement. Same as I see on a lot of other GM trucks with the center link rolling forward and back. I’m just gonna bite the bullet and replace the pitman/idler arms, and install the cognito braces. F it. The boots are old and cracked or cracking on the tie rods, so I’ll probly replace those as well.
Best to do it all while you are in there and have it apart. Realign asap after the work.
live2pull
Full Access Member
just so you know, if you have access to a welder and angle grinder, I built a Pitman idler support kit for my duramax for about 60 bucks.
I have both, and normally that’s how I like to do things... make > buy. But I just don’t have time to fabricate anything right now, so I have to place a high value on the time it would take (buying, designing, shaping, welding, finishing). I gotta keep the wife happy so I can steal time to work on other projects, and I’ve been cashing in a lot of chips working on the truck already
Would these "supports" be mounted where the frame and idler/steering gear box bolt to the frame rails? If so, that would, IMO, be an extreme amount of flex/stress happening at the attachment points and could be an indication of possible frame damage/cracking. My off road rig had these bought/custom built brackets because of the extreme stresses when off roading and rock crawling. On a stock rig that seems unneeded but there is nothing wrong with reinforcing those areas for "just in case".
No. They attach to the same points where the pitman/idler arms bolt on to the box and center link. The easiest way to think of them is as mirrors to the pitman/idler underneath. It creates a second connection point on the under side of the center link to prevent the joints in each arm from allowing the center link to roll forward/backward when the wheels want to toe in/out under power/braking.
From what what I’ve observed in manipulating the wheel and seeing the way it moves the linkage, these supports should eliminate that unwanted movement. Having thought through it practically, I’m confident these will solve my problem. The sleeves are more of a “just in case” to protect the new tie rods.
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Alright, circling back around with the update. Problem solved!
Swapped out the idler and pitman arms and then installed the cognito supports. The linkage is now solid as a rock! It’s no race car, but the steering has waaay less slop. The wheels don’t toe in nearly as much as they used to. I’m pretty damn pleased right now because I know if I hadn’t spent the extra time and money, I would no doubt have broken something in no time flat with the new bigger wheels and tires.
Thanks for all the help y’all!
Swapped out the idler and pitman arms and then installed the cognito supports. The linkage is now solid as a rock! It’s no race car, but the steering has waaay less slop. The wheels don’t toe in nearly as much as they used to. I’m pretty damn pleased right now because I know if I hadn’t spent the extra time and money, I would no doubt have broken something in no time flat with the new bigger wheels and tires.
Thanks for all the help y’all!
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