6/4.5" skyjacker lift....axle clocking

[glhs]

Puff1; Just noticed your sig. says D250; if you have a 4x4 it's a W.

D=2WD

 

[puff1]

OOPS! I thought the D was for diesel:-laf. I also found out I have 3. 55 gears, guess I will change it. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[JGrefenstette]

wow im glad i seen this post. ive been planning to do a skyjacker 2inch lift on my W250 clubcab. i was figuring on dropping my carrier barring about 1/2 inch when i do the lift. but will this small 2inch kit make my truck drive like junk? i do travel highway speeds for 5+ hours more than occasionaly. will this lift srew me up? i was hoping to just slap the kit in and go. am i in for more than i think?

 

[Tippin Spotted Cow]

I would imagine 2 inch wouldn't bother anything... you probably could just leave your carrier bearing alone too

 

[JGrefenstette]

you think the bearing is ok?? i might still drop it, cause im over precautios. im glad to hear the reasuring words tho. i hope your right

 

[Tippin Spotted Cow]

You have enough length from your carrier to your rear end, I wouldnt imagine youd have to change a thing... I've seen a lot worse angles than that.



2 inch shouldnt mess anything up though... Don't tip either axel though. You shouldn't need too, I think theres enough clearance around the front driveshaft for 2 inches of lift... Use some string and a yardstick, you could figure that out pretty easy.

 

[JGrefenstette]

great, thanks. ill get out of the way of the serious guys on this thread who are sending their trucks through the sky. ive done lifts of fords before and some jeeps, but never an old dodge.

 

[AKimmel]

When you get the 2" springs for the front, take the wedges off. If you leave them on, you will lose all your caster and it will probably drive like crap. I did this on mine, and all went well and it drives great. I did grind the the CV joint up by the transfercase for more angle. They have flat tabs and extra material around the u-joint cap that prevents them from dropping down very much. But, other than that you should be alright to just bolt on and go.

 

[JGrefenstette]

sorry to be so ingorant on this, but can u explain "caster" to me??? and how removing the wedges will help. will removing them effect my hight at all. the whole reason im lifting it is to give my tires more clearence and to support a cattle pusher bumper.

 

[Tippin Spotted Cow]

When you align a vehicle, there are 4 things you check: caster, camber, toe-in, and dog tracking (I don't know the technical term for that one). Dog tracking is the relation of your front wheels path to your rear wheels. Toe-in is the angle between the centerlines of the path of your front wheels. Camber is the angle between vertical centerlines of your front wheels. Caster is basically the angle of the centerline around which your wheels turn for steering in relation to the angle the axle is sitting at, judged by where the pinion comes out.



Didn't take latin?



Dog tracking: Think about driving through snow or mud, in a straight line, your rear wheels shouldn't make any tracks because they're in the tracks of the front wheels.



Toe-in: The only real alignment you can check on a solid front axle truck (like our 4wds). Picture your front wheels need to be pointing the same way. If your driving straight they should both point straight forward.



Camber: Look from the front of the truck, the wheels should be standing straight up and down on a solid front axle. If they're not... you have issues.



Caster: Your ball joints should be basically directly vertical of each other... but slightly at an angle if you drew a line between them. That angle is caster. When you put a big lift on the pinion coming out of the differential needs to be angled slightly upward. You can tip the axle to do this, but then your caster is out of whack. What these guys did was pull the knuckle that holds the ball joints off the axle tubes, rotating them back to the factory setting, but with the pinion now angled upward. The when the axle is reinstalled, wedge shaped blocks need to be put under the leafs, on top of the axle to tip it right.

 

[AKimmel]

Yea, what he said. Just a small side note: Our trucks have king pins, not ball joints, but as far as explaining alignment, its all the same. King pins are just another reason why our trucks are better than the rest.

 

[Tippin Spotted Cow]

My bad... different part, serves the same purpose. Thats the one thing I've yet to pull apart on my truck. Thanks for the catch.

 

[glhs]

I am seriously considering clocking the knuckles. My shaft angle is 10. 5* and the pinion is at 5*. Under cruise/ accel conditions I suppose the pinion goes down to 4*. I do notice a very slight vibration in 4x4 and want to eliminate it all for racing down the track.

What kind of caster angles did you guys figure the factory had on your axles?

 

[JGrefenstette]

thanks a bunch tippin, that makes perfect sense now. im not going to steal this post anymore than i already have. but wanted to clarify somthing, if i do the 2inches, are you sayin ill need the wedges or not to use them???

not to long ago i helped a friend replace upper and lower ball joints on a ford f350 dana 60. what a job. i had to torch out the upper joints on both. and i had to cut the front u-joints in half with the torch then drive the caps out... . it was a good time

 

[glhs]

Technically speaking, on all/any 4x4 that use a cv on the transfer case side and a single joint at the pinion, the yoke should be in perfect alignment with the driveshaft under cruise conditions. With the naked eye if you can see a discrepency, it's likely at least 2* off or more. Under cruise conditions the front pinion will go down about . 5-1. 5*. The rear will go up about 1-2*.

To check the rear using no cv is different and the above rule does not apply.

Now everbody go and check the front shaft of your trucks and my guess is the pinion is at a lower angle than the shaft.

As you lift the front it gets worse.

If you use tapered/angle wedges, , it will correct itself. Super duper, right? WRONG! Unless the factory set an excessive amount of caster into the knuckles, you will create an unsafe negative caster condition which causes the truck to drive like poo poo. Very unsafe.

If only used for off roading and it's not too much negative, you might be ok.

 

[AKimmel]

thanks a bunch tippin, that makes perfect sense now. im not going to steal this post anymore than i already have. but wanted to clarify somthing, if i do the 2inches, are you sayin ill need the wedges or not to use them???

not to long ago i helped a friend replace upper and lower ball joints on a ford f350 dana 60. what a job. i had to torch out the upper joints on both. and i had to cut the front u-joints in half with the torch then drive the caps out... . it was a good time

When you buy 2" springs from Skyjacker, they will have some wedge shaped shims attached to the bottom of them. These help your pinion angle, but you will lose all your caster. I took mine off, and installed the springs like the factory ones are. I don't have any binding in the U-joint on the frontend, but I did grind my CV joint to allow for more droop. This setup works great on my truck, so I don't think there is any need for the wedges with a 2" lift.

 

[JGrefenstette]

thanks kimmel, can you explain "grinding the CV joint" ?? should i do this? or am i ok with out.



is that the 2inch lift on the 87? do i need knew shocks also or will just the front leafs and the rear add-a-leaf be all thats necisary to make it work?

 

[AKimmel]

Its kinda hard to explain, but if you take your driveshaft out and look at it you'll see what I'm talking about. When you flex the CV joint as far as it will go, it limits itself because of these taps that protrude outward and the material around the U-joint cap is squared off. If you gind the tabs off, and grind the material around the cap so that it is a uniform thickness, it will allow the joint to flex more. Most CV joints on other vehicles are like this already, but all the Dodges I've had, have this limiting design. I don't know if you have to do it, I just didn't want to have it bind on me later under a load or when the suspension was flexed. The 87 in my signature has 2" springs, but I added one of the short leafs out of my old spring pack in with the new on each side, because the old ones were I think 6 leafs and the new are only 5. I wanted to keep the spring pack the same thickness so that the U-bolts didn't end up being to long. I've got longer shocks on mine, but I don't know if you have to or not.

 

[JGrefenstette]

sorry to be so dense but im a little in the dark with the 'CV joint'. i understand the u-joints fine, but where on the drive shaft is a CV joint and what purpose does it serve? how did you add a leaf from your old stack to the new ones?

 

[AKimmel]

The CV (constant velocity) joint is up by the transfercase, its the double u-joint thing, its also called a double cardan joint. It can operate at more angle than a single u-joint can. To add a leaf, you put a c-clamp on the spring pack to hold it together, then remove the center pin, and the spring pack comes apart. Then just "add a leaf" and put it back together.