Driveshaft Angle vs. Caster

1040 Views 7 Replies 4 Participants Last post by SilverDiesel, Nov 23, 2005

rgunn1

Discussion Starter · Nov 22, 2005

This is a post I made on my club web page due to allignment being a hot topic over there right now. I wanted to go ahead and post it over here though, since I seem to be the only dodge owner in south La. Oh and BTW, ignore the smileys that aren't supported :bigthumb: .

So I finally got my front driveshaft on :. The yoke on the front of the driveshaft makes contact with the yoke on the differential :wall:. My first though was that I'll just pull 'er off for a second and play with the grinder and make a little room in the "valley" (probably not the proper term for the space between the ears) of both of the yokes so the ears wouldn't make contact with the opposite yokes. Then I realized I had these nifty little adjustable control arms (thanks Phil :bigthumb: ) and I started to wonder if I could just shorten the lowers a little bit to put the shaft at a little better of an angle.

Well, if I remember correctly, my caster is at about 3.5 degrees right now. If I shorten the lowers, it would reduce my caster, thereby making the truck more seceptable to death woble, but if I dropped down to around 2 degrees, would it help the angle enough to make a difference or am I just urinating in the wind?

What would you guys do :baby:

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Madd Ramm

· #2 · Nov 22, 2005

The 1 degree won't do a whole lot with his yokes contact...maybe a little, but not much.

Plus, it isn't wise to play with steering settings to adjust a drivetrain problem. Get a different yoke, clearance the yokes, get a better driveshaft or something else in order to make substantial improvement.

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rgunn1

Discussion Starter · #3 · Nov 22, 2005

Itsa the freakin bad boy jr. that Danny and Drew both tried to run (BTW I think ya'll had it on wrong :flipoff: ) but had vibrations with. The fawkin' thing should work on my truck without binding being as I have a lot less lift than they do :shoot: .

Edit: I am running the one ton yoke with the conversion U-joint on the D44... could that have something to do with it?

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SilverDiesel

· #4 · Nov 22, 2005

i'm running dc arms and i have my lower arms cranked as short as possible to raise the pinion up. To me it seems fine. It makes the steering lighter and makes the truck wander somewhat at higher speeds but i don't go faster 70mph anyways.

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rgunn1

Discussion Starter · #5 · Nov 22, 2005

[hijack]

If I lower the caster it will sharpen the steering up, won't it? We may have changed the angle a little when we modded the arms. We moved the axle forward 2.5 inches and now it turns like a BUS. I can't believe 2.5 inches of extra wheelbase whould make that big of a differnce

[/hijack]

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SilverDiesel

· #6 · Nov 22, 2005

caster doesn't have to do with steering sharper. it has to do with how straight the truck wants to track and how much the steering wheel will want to return to center.

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Mud Ready

· #7 · Nov 22, 2005

On 2005-11-22 05:42, SilverDiesel wrote:
i'm running dc arms and i have my lower arms cranked as short as possible to raise the pinion up. To me it seems fine. It makes the steering lighter and makes the truck wander somewhat at higher speeds but i don't go faster 70mph anyways.

Do you notice any cupping on your front tires running with the pinion tilted up slightly?

If I run with the pinion turned up at all my tires start to cup. I cant keep the cam bolts in position so it is always tilted up. My Ground Hawgs keep cupping even if I rotate them. I have wondered if it was the tires or the caster on the axle. Oh I have about 6.5-7" of lift on my DC arms.

My stock shaft binds at the CV joint, the axle end has plenty of clearence.

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SilverDiesel

· #8 · Nov 23, 2005

On 2005-11-22 12:21, Mud Ready wrote:

Do you notice any cupping on your front tires running with the pinion tilted up slightly?

If I run with the pinion turned up at all my tires start to cup. I cant keep the cam bolts in position so it is always tilted up. My Ground Hawgs keep cupping even if I rotate them. I have wondered if it was the tires or the caster on the axle. Oh I have about 6.5-7" of lift on my DC arms.

My stock shaft binds at the CV joint, the axle end has plenty of clearence.

my tires are wearing perfectly smooth except for my chunking from offroad. By definition of caster i don't think it can cause cupping unless your toe-in setting is out of wack. And do you really mean "all" your tires? as in the back ones too? Are you sure you're running the right tire pressure?

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