New member from Southern Arizona

I've been lurking for the past couple months on and off in my free time I have a 2 door Blazer rear wheel drive with a 4.8/5.3 Swap and a 4L60E.
its got Qa1 single adjustable coilovers and qa1 shocks in the rear with a one inch drop block and cal-tracs and a posi rear with 3.73 gears.
I've been trying to stop it from wondering all over the road so I can hopefully get it handle fairly decent.

Welcome aboard!

What kind of wandering do you have?

With the higher caster most of us run the truck will tend to track with the road grade, grooves, imperfections, etc. Think of caster as an auto centering correction; it allows for the wheels to return straight quickly, but will also follow whatever the road is giving to it.

I'm new to this whole vehicles that handle good thing. I was really into drag racing so I don't quite understand the use of caster but as far as I know its stock camber, toe and caster. But it follows the grooves in the road real bad and the steering feels loose but cant see any movement in any of the steering components and I just put in a new steering box.

Stock caster is in the 3-4* range, but I don't remember exactly. Many bump it up to 5/5.5 to increase the rate it straightens out, which translates to the wheel being easier to straighten or returning to center quicker. Hopefully I'm not using too many words to describe something simple haha. Overall it is a good thing, but these trucks with wider tires tend to follow the road from the factory and increased caster only makes that worse.

To put it simply, following the road is normal for the stock suspension geometry and there aren't bolt on solutions to change it that I'm aware of.

Have you replaced the rag joint in the steering shaft? If there is no movement in the steering linkage and the box is fresh that would be my guess. I picked up a U joint off eBay (http://r.ebay.com/sbVXef or http://r.ebay.com/5osXyB) for my truck. Many have used the Flaming Rivers U joint too - Part Number: FR1746DD. Using the stock shaft you'll want a 3/4" 30 spline to 1"DD joint.

I've Actually got the Cherokee mod or whatever you call basically the flaming river shaft. and Thanks for clearing up the following of the road that makes a lot of sense now that I know its normal. By the way I really love your blazer project and was looking to up my wheel size from a 15 inch to a 17 or 18 and saw you had cragar steelies on it at one point would you mind pointing me in the right direction to get a similar set up?

So you swapped in a jeep shaft? I'd still grab a friend, pop the hood, and have them jerk the wheel around while watching the shaft. When I did the jeep shaft I ended up with an extra joint in the system and it wasn't doing me any favors either. A fresh steering box should be nice and tight, but can't make any guarantees there. I always end up getting everything fixed and have the the box as the last factor with slop.

What do you want to know about the Cragers? I got all of mine from Summit. They're around ~$100/wheel now. I started out with a staggered 17x8/9 with 245/275 wide tires. I ultimately ended up with 17x9 w/5" backspacing and 275/40R17 on all 4 corners and only had to bump out the steering stops 1/4" on my Isuzu Hombre to avoid rubbing. They're lug centric wheels, which work fine, but I still thought about getting 1/8-1/4" hub centric spacers made up to push them out a bit more for flush look and getting the wheel centers machined to match the spacer's hub.  Spaced out they might not rub either.



That's the 17x9's with an xtreme suspension setup + tall lower ball joints.

For center caps I ran the Crager chrome dome with some aftermarket chrome lugnuts for a long while, but they got rusty and nasty.



On the Isuzu I originally used the snap on GMC caps with factory lug nuts they look fine, but weren't the right branding.



Ultimately picked up some NOS 1st gen 4x4 caps and had them plastic chromed and slapped on the sticker of my choice. I had to cut down the standoffs on the back, but they turned out perfect for the look I wanted.  The 4x4 caps won't fit on a 2wd s10 though. I had Blazer Spindles/Hubs/Brakes on the Isuzu, so it didn't have the 2wd S10 hub sticking out and preventing the cap from sitting flush.

i agree with Harley,

all my steering slop comes from within the gearbox itself.
(at least for about a year when the pitman/idler start to die)

I think this pic is a 245/45/17 front  275/40/17 rear on the cragars i ran,


but i did end up running that exact rear combo on the front for some track days with no issues (slight trimming on the stock stamped LCAs)

these are extremely heavy wheels though, so unless you are on a serious budget (as i was) I'd recommend buying lighter aluminum wheels

these are extremely heavy wheels though, so unless you are on a serious budget (as i was) I'd recommend buying lighter aluminum wheels

That is an important statement. My Isuzu was a budget street build and I already had 2 of the 9" wheels, so I kept with the Cragers. Definitely explored other options for the Blazer and my 18x10's are far lighter than the Cragers and less than twice as much although I'm also having to buy spacer/adapters to run them, so that adds dollars.

So i checked looked at the new box and the steering shaft has about an inch of slop and doesnt move any steering components so im looking for zq8 steering boxes but am having no luck all ac delco boxes are out of stock so im looking at the borgeson 700 series 12.7 to 1 boxes its pretty expensive but ill just bite the bullet and get it.

No slop in the shaft itself? Don't mean to keep beating that horse, but also don't want you to blow unnecessary money.

I'm at the same point in shopping boxes. You can get a 10:1, but that's over a grand  :O AGR made boxes at one point too. I'll be doing more research myself this week.

I dont feel any slop in the shaft itself although it shifts slightly but not to the degree i feel with the steering wheel attached to the box. And as for the wheels im looking at some steelies because there cheap but will be temporary because my current tire choice on 15x8 wheels is not ideal and results in very soft sidewalls.