Broke my idler arm on a 4wd road real inconvenient to tow out of. Wondering any ways to limp it down? And if that would effect anything else in the steering system? thanks.

 

When the Idler broke was it the shaft?

If your running >OEM tires and wheels and or pre-running with 31's then the only plan is to carry a spare and a puller to replace the blasted thing when it snaps. It is not will it, it is when it snaps! As this is the reality the fatigue strength or factor of saftey when compared to the tensile strength of the sector shaft is less than 1 which means it will fail given enough load cycles.

I cannot stress enough that any plan to make this idler arm a better component of the steering system requires removal of the bending of the sector shaft. The best way is to add to the arm a bracket to the outside of it that covers the zerk on the housing that bolts to the frame and ties back into the shaft at the top of the housing. As for the pivot at the end of the arm there are both radial and axial forces that try to take this joint apart when pre-running over rough terrain for instance. I suspect that the axial load capacity for a spherical rod end bearing is not robust enough to manage this for a long term solution. If the axis on the steering box and idler can be made parallel to each other then the rolling of the drag link that ties them together could be forsaken. Then these joints become a pivot only and one degree of freedom is removed from the linkage. Then perhaps the plus/minus 1/8 of a turn of nothing might get reduced at the steering wheel?

 

When the Idler broke was it the shaft?

If your running >OEM tires and wheels and or pre-running with 31's then the only plan is to carry a spare and a puller to replace the blasted thing when it snaps. It is not will it, it is when it snaps! As this is the reality the fatigue strength or factor of saftey when compared to the tensile strength of the sector shaft is less than 1 which means it will fail given enough load cycles.

I cannot stress enough that any plan to make this idler arm a better component of the steering system requires removal of the bending of the sector shaft. The best way is to add to the arm a bracket to the outside of it that covers the zerk on the housing that bolts to the frame and ties back into the shaft at the top of the housing. As for the pivot at the end of the arm there are both radial and axial forces that try to take this joint apart when pre-running over rough terrain for instance. I suspect that the axial load capacity for a spherical rod end bearing is not robust enough to manage this for a long term solution. If the axis on the steering box and idler can be made parallel to each other then the rolling of the drag link that ties them together could be forsaken. Then these joints become a pivot only and one degree of freedom is removed from the linkage. Then perhaps the plus/minus 1/8 of a turn of nothing might get reduced at the steering wheel?

 

drive backwards as much as possible