A couple of weeks ago I installed the Cognito UCA leveling kit and also the Cognito Pitman/Idler Arm support kit. After installing the pitman/idler support kit, while the truck was still up on the jack stands, I was testing the feel of the steering lock to lock and noticed what I consider a potentially serious problem:
At full right hand turn at full lock I noticed that the turn limit "bump" stops on the left (driver's side) spindle/steering knuckle were lacking a 1/4" of making contact. What I found really disturbed me. The Cognito idler support arm was hard up against the center link, right where the steering stabilizer is mounted. This is bad news because the mechanical advantage of this scissor like action puts an extreme amount of sideways shear stress on the the idler arm mounting stud that the center link is mounted on. This point of contact is now acting as the turn limit bump stop!
I contacted Cognito immediately about this (emailed them photos also), and they told me that my alignment was probably in an extreme toe-out situation, and after a professional alignment the problem would be corrected. Wrong! I knew this wasn't the case as I checked the toe-in toe-out with a tape measure and it showed a 1/16" toe-in which is within specs.
Because I installed the Cognito UCA's and cranked up the torsion bar keys an alignment was called for anyway, so I just just had a professional alignment done yesterday, which is why I waited to post this. The alignment DID NOT correct this problem. I will contact Cognito again concerning this, but I don't see any easy fix for this. Today, with my right angle grinder, I ground a notch in the center link at the point of contact and also ground a little off the Cognito idler support arm. This has fixed that point of contact but the spindle turn limit stop still lacks about an 1/8" of making contact, because now the outboard side of the Cognito support arm is contacting the front frame cross member. Also in an extreme left turn at lock the Cognito pitman support arm also contacts the front frame cross member on the left side and prevents the right side spindle turn limit stop from engaging by about 1/16". The spindle turn limit stops need to take the stress of a full lock turn, not the Cognito components, especially in extreme off-roading situations.
At any rate I urge anyone who has installed the Cognito pitman/idler support arm kit to remove your front skid plate ASAP and do an inspection. I can't believe that my '05 H2 is unique in some way. If this is a problem with my ride, I'm betting it's a problem with your ride too. I'd sure like to find out!
edit: Actually you don't really need to remove the skid plate, just turn the steering lock to lock and look underneath to see if the turn limit stops are making contact. If you have this problem, please post your experience here, I'll be contacting Cognito about this next Monday. I also started this same topic over at the
******* Forums.
[IMG]http://www.*******club.com/forum/download/file.php?id=15599[/IMG]