Castor correction & uni's

[DRanged]

OK
Thought I'd post this thread so we didn't hijack Busmans anymore.
Below are 2 photos of my RRC set up, which is

4" spring lift
castor corrected swivels
Standard radius arms with genuine bushes
Toughdog panhard rod to handle the angle change
Standard chassis crossmember
610mm pin to pin shocks

What I dont agree with is if you fit cranked radius arms, the diff will rotate down in the direction of the arrow, yes! This will increase the angle of the uni out of the trans case. It will increase the down angle of the drive shaft. It will change the angle of the uni at the diff end which is excellent as is. Mind you the drive shaft will be almost touching the crossmember and this is on flat ground with no down travel or articulation


Unless you want a bigger lift etc I cant see why people argue that cranked arms are a better option for the uni's and drive shaft. I've had this set up for near 10 years and not a vibration or uni failure?????

As the photos show the uni angles are fine for a 4" lift. Even on full articulation the shaft and crossmember dont touch (not by much though) Yes the angle of the trans uni is more than standard but I use a wide yoke original shaft with no failures.

To all non GCLRO members on a club thread we were looking at the pro's and cons of castor corrected swivels vs cranked radius arms

Justin

[Grimace]

Cranked arms for the win!

Wayne (mate) recently fitted my old rovertym cranked arms to his 3" lifted rangie and claims it drives better now then stock

[Camo]

Castor corrected swivel housings would be 10 times better than cranked arms yeah?.. no effect to the driveshaft

Camo

[Grimace]

Castor corrected swivel housings would be 10 times better than cranked arms yeah?.. no effect to the driveshaft

Camo

NO!

Cranked arms return evrything to stock alignment and phase at ride height.
Yes driveshaft angle is increased but it's all in phase again.

IMHO anyone would be much better off with cranked arms.
More flex, more clearance, more strength, springs, shock & panhard mounts alligned to standard, releive chassis mount stress.

Then those with larger lifts and experiencing driveshaft issues, need to accept the responsibility that come along with huge lifts and upgrade accordingly.
Some get away with huge lifts and no driveshafts issues, other have issues at small lifts. Luck of the draw really!

[Camo]

NO!

Cranked arms return evrything to stock alignment and phase at ride height.
Yes driveshaft angle is increased but it's all in phase again.

IMHO anyone would be much better off with cranked arms.
More flex, more clearance, more strength, springs, shock & panhard mounts alligned to standard, releive chassis mount stress.

Then those with larger lifts and experiencing driveshaft issues, need to accept the responsibility that come along with huge lifts and upgrade accordingly.
Some get away with huge lifts and no driveshafts issues, other have issues at small lifts. Luck of the draw really!

OK!

you sort of make sense there I'm still thinking of a cheaper way to fix my vibes.. but looks like $1400 of custom driveshafts for tom woods is the only way to fix mine. Joys of spring lifts

Camo

[dungarover]

Castor corrected swivel housings would be 10 times better than cranked arms yeah?.. no effect to the driveshaft

Camo

The joys of spring lift plus over 2 inch. If you do a lift over 2 inches it gets costly and neds to done properly as you have found out. As you have Pootrol front end the swivel is one piece so it's a much more complicated idea so cranked arms are the go for you.

One thing unique with a Land Rover and this is the only vehicle that you can do this is that the swivel is seperate from the axle itself, most other vehicles have a one-piece swivel and axle set-up.

On the subject of castor corrected swivels in one word yes this should cure your uni vibration issue. The swivels will return your uni shaft back to the std angle eliminiating the front uni vibration. It's also cheaper in the scheme of things and mine are getting sorted as we speak (should get about 3 deg of castor correction, I added a few mm extra to it to compensate for saggy springs, etc..). Plus for me, the silver bullet needed to get the death wobble sorted and fit the front air locker, so pulling it to bits was the perfect opputunity to get it done (have spare swivels so the bullet is still in one piece). The castor corrected swivels come with 2 extra holes so that they don't turn around under load and throw the castor out again so in effect you have 9 holes holding it to the axle not the 7 as per std (on 86 onward RRC and Discos this is).

I'm not here to argue what is best, all options work but I felt that this is the better option just a PIA if you don't have spare swivels as you need to pull the Rangie to bits to do so, get them sent off, etc... I have no intentions of lifting my Rangie over 2 inches, with a larger lift the other options may be more suitable.

Trav

[DRanged]

I have to disagree with you Grimace. Yes panhard bush angle changes but a simple tough dog unit or similar can fix that. Springs can easily handle a change in angle as can shock mount rubbers and radius rear mounts as they are more a static mount. Uni angle is way more important as it has to deal with a torque load as well as balance through its arc of movement. After all we are mostly talking about road going vehicles with say 35" tyres max and no more than 4" spring lift Yeh. Anything more than that IMHO would need a lot more work and probably not be on the road. When mine was engineered the fella was more than happy retaining the original Radius arms and properly slotting AND strenghtening the swivels. (my 6 bolt units are now 8 bolt) with the 2 extra along the bottom half of the swivel where the extra load is.

Dave sorry for hijacking you thread. I hope what we are talking about makes sense.

Proofs in the pudding as my RRC is absolutely vibration free and drives great for a 6" combined lift.

Thats my set up anyway.
Justin

[dungarover]

NO!

Cranked arms return evrything to stock alignment and phase at ride height.
Yes driveshaft angle is increased but it's all in phase again.

IMHO anyone would be much better off with cranked arms.
More flex, more clearance, more strength, springs, shock & panhard mounts alligned to standard, releive chassis mount stress.

Then those with larger lifts and experiencing driveshaft issues, need to accept the responsibility that come along with huge lifts and upgrade accordingly.
Some get away with huge lifts and no driveshafts issues, other have issues at small lifts. Luck of the draw really!

Simple sollution, don't lift your Rangie too high This is why I don't do big lifts, too may hassles and too bloody $$$$ I don't have the greatest flex but my Rangies always go where everyone elses do.

I have to side with Justin here, castor swivels do the same in a less than flash sort of way, all you're doing is re-aligning the front end back to stock.

I just like simple and cheap as you know.

Trav

[Baffle]

Agreed, Its only to improve steering and handling
,4/5 inch max with standard arms. I had 6" lift and the car was not acceptable on the road, nearly but not good. I put a Dc in the back shaft and that did stop the rear vib ( only slight)

[Blknight.aus]

OK
Thought I'd post this thread so we didn't hijack Busmans anymore.
Below are 2 photos of my RRC set up, which is

4" spring lift
castor corrected swivels
Standard radius arms with genuine bushes
Toughdog panhard rod to handle the angle change
Standard chassis crossmember
610mm pin to pin shocks

What I dont agree with is if you fit cranked radius arms, the diff will rotate down in the direction of the arrow, yes! This will increase the angle of the uni out of the trans case. It will increase the down angle of the drive shaft. It will change the angle of the uni at the diff end which is excellent as is. Mind you the drive shaft will be almost touching the crossmember and this is on flat ground with no down travel or articulation


Unless you want a bigger lift etc I cant see why people argue that cranked arms are a better option for the uni's and drive shaft. I've had this set up for near 10 years and not a vibration or uni failure?????

As the photos show the uni angles are fine for a 4" lift. Even on full articulation the shaft and crossmember dont touch (not by much though) Yes the angle of the trans uni is more than standard but I use a wide yoke original shaft with no failures.

To all non GCLRO members on a club thread we were looking at the pro's and cons of castor corrected swivels vs cranked radius arms

Justin

the same argument goes for fitting the castor correction bushes.....

lift it and correct it and you can run out of deflection at the tcase end on full extention which tends to end badly.