Totally normal in my experience.

 

Mine has a gap. It can’t be flush. It would rub.

 

yeah, wasn't expecting flush, but would have assumed 1/8" gap or so. Anyway, good to know.

 

Does the quick steer pitman arm have roller bearings on one end ? I new OT sold the idler arms with rollers but didn’t know about the pitmans.

 

The pitman arm just connects the steering box to the linkage. No roller bearing there.

Rusty

 

The idler arm on the opposite frame rail is offered as a roller. Not the Pitman arm.

 

Mine has the gap also I think the oem ones are tapered and more complex to manufacture
It would be interesting to see what a original quick steer arm looked like

 

My OEM 6 cylinder box(with the non-quick steer pitman arm still attached under a heavy layer of rust) looks pretty much the same gap(maybe even a touch more?). I am going to go out on a limb here and say that the arm has likely never been replaced since the last time my car was on the road was in 1977 in other words...11 years after it was made...its rare anyone ever changes a pitman arm that soon after manufacture short of accident damage.

 

Torque spec on the Pitman Arm nut is 85-110 lb/ft.

 

Thanks, I did still need to research that, I just stopped where I was because I didnt want to force anything before final torqueing. As a matter of fact, my entire suspension and steering needs final torqueing before the end, I just have to get it all correct before then, due to the angle I canted my crossmember at to clear the oil pan, due to the quicksteer arms my inner tie rods are rubbing the crossmember:

C'est la vie, This is the domino effect of one modification after another. I have to slightly clearance the crossmember to fix this...but first I have to come up with some primitive way to measure my caster/camber/toe-in to make sure I give it enough clearance. Its a Z-Ray crossmember kit, so DOM tubing, I really don't need much material gone to clear with any luck and I should have wall that losing 1/8" or so right along the mark is not going to make much strength difference. Then there is the fact at full lock that the drag link is only 1/8" from the oil pan, so I need to decide if I want to cut up, modify and weld the drag link to duplicate the center section of the 67-70 drag link for more clearance or whether to risk that 1/8"...gotta love the tangled web we weave when first we start to....pile one modification on top of another. In this case though the quick steer arms actually give me slightly more oil pan clearance than the non-quick steer arms.

 

Is a quick steer arm shorter than a stock arm ? Regarding final torque, a friend of mine would keep a yellow paint pen handy. Every time he torqued a fastener to final, he’d swipe the paint pen across the nut and bolt (or housing) so there was evidence he’d torqued it. Saved all the doubts later about whether you got them all. You’d think a bunch of yellow would look bad but it was really barely noticeable unless you were looking for it.

 

Is a quick steer arm shorter than a stock arm ?

Quick steer arm is longer. For any amount of turn in the steering box the end of a longer arm moves further thus it pushes tie rods more, causing the spindles to turn more (quicker). In this case the longer lever, quicker steering, requires more steering effort.

 

thanks