Thread: Wandering steering after 2 inch Spring lift. Whats your thoughts guys?

According to RAVE both D1 and Defender have 3° castor!

height difference between front and rear must affect any castor measurement taken too. They specify that the 3° spec will be with oil/water and 5 gallons of fuel.
Obviously the height of the rear with only 20-ish litres of fuel(as opposed to about 80lt) makes a difference.

on an unrelated side note, the D2 also has 3° of castor too.

Just out of curiosity, what would characteristics would 6 degrees of castor give?

I would think unmanageable shimmy! The castor is what gives most of the self centring, and if you have excessive self centring it will overshoot straight ahead, self centre back, overshoot - repeat. In the days when all cars had beam front axles and leaf springs, a standard remedy for shimmy was to reduce castor with wedges.

Originally Posted by DAMINK

Isnt that a side effect of the cranked arms as well as those offset bushes?
Where drilling the swivels does not do that?

Yes it is.


From memory, for every 1/2" of lift over stock, you loose 1* of castor.

Mine drives fine (now) with 3* caster corrected front arms (QT) and 2" lift. It was anything but for a bit, combo of problems including swivel preload, slightly worn tie road end and alignment.

If the usual culprits look ok (panhard bushes, radius arm bushes, tie rod ends and rear a-frame ball joint), double check alignment and check swivel preload.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

I would think unmanageable shimmy! The castor is what gives most of the self centring, and if you have excessive self centring it will overshoot straight ahead, self centre back, overshoot - repeat. In the days when all cars had beam front axles and leaf springs, a standard remedy for shimmy was to reduce castor with wedges.

No, it works ok, or at least did on the Jeeps I increased the castor on to 5-6°

Increased castor increases negative camber on lock, it makes the steering quite a bit heavier.
When Holden went to their Radial Tuned Suspension on the HZ part of the trick was a big increase in castor and the PAS versions had more castor than the manual steering cars.
In some race cars we'd increase castor to over 8°, they where like trucks to steer.

Originally Posted by AK83

According to RAVE both D1 and Defender have 3° castor!

Not sure where I got the extra castor for a Deefer from, I was sure or was slightly more and I don't have my old paper manuals anymore

Does a defender have a higher static ride height than a defer?

Originally Posted by edddo

Strange how different D1's can tolerate the same amount of lift differently.
Mine is about 2 inch lift and steers ok at all speeds with no intervention other than to make sure the wheel alignment is correct - done by me, not a shop
maybe the lift has highlighted some wear in steering componentry, and is the WA correct?

think landrover build quality and wear.

Originally Posted by fitzy

Hi Rick,
Above you say Defenders run more castor than Disco’s.
How is this done?

they dont but it would be done by changing the radius arm shape so you dont wind up with an issue if someone winds up with a wrong steering ball

Originally Posted by fitzy

Does a defender have a higher static ride height than a defer?

no same basic vehicle the defender and the Defer, but both are different to a disco.