In the pics your steering shaft doesn't look like it is a true 90* with the mower frame, won't that put the pitman arm at the same degree as your shaft and I don't know how to explain it but "bind" it up? I figured the pitman arm needed to be parallel with the bottom of the mower frame.
Steering is one of the single most challenging aspects of building a mower.
Very few mowers come from the factory with a perfect 90 degree steering shaft angle.
And yes, it throws all geometry off.
Did you bore out the pitman arm to make it parallel or do the sperical rod eyes have enough degree of motion to let the pitman arm not have to be at true 90*?
You are going to get some motion out of the rod ends, and the flat bar will be at an angle too.
I am probably over-thinking this, but this is my first build and I have looked at NUMEROUS steering set-ups on here and they still puzzle me to an extent!
You are to the point of fitting some metal and quit thinking. LOL
In my first build, I built mine 5 times, and still not 100% happy with it.
Tack, bend..... re-tack.... bend... almost have it, it breaks off the tack.
Weld.... grind it back off.
I know I am digging up old posts but this post has helped me alot. Thanks for the help!
This is what these threads are for, all the information is in the site to build a mower, if people look for it.
You will need your motor and pulley installed, or atleast your pan, crank, and pulley, to be able to work around that.
Start reading here
http://www.heymow.com/index.php?topic=1595.msg35329#msg35329 and you will see how he did it, and corrected it some posts lower. You steering is going to have some trial by fit.