dsword

I did a budget Rough Country lift, 2 1/2" front and 2" rear, 2.2 shocks and a Skyjacker steering stabilizer with 33s. I was experiencing a high speed wobble that I would have to slow down for, to make it stop. I also noticed a jumpiness to the steering, which is caused by too small of a caster angle. After the lift, mine was 4.2 degrees. I needed 7 degrees. After this change, no more shaking and my steering is back to normal, not twitchy.

I'm aware that most JKs don't seem to need a caster adjustment with anything less than a three inch lift, but for some reason, mine did. It's an '07 X 2 door with 12000 miles. A very early '07 X, if that makes a difference.

While I realize that the BEST way to change the caster on a JK is to get a longer or adjustable lower control arm. I also realize that this change is more or less permanent, but if you have the means to make this part to move the control arm bolt back 1/4", you would also have the means to make this part with the bolt hole back in the center, right?

Personally, I didn't feel like paying 230 dollars for new control arms, or 60 dollars for a bolt cam kit that consists of two washers and two bolts\nuts, ya know?

So getting to the parts I cut out. They're 1 5/8" wide, 1 1/2" tall with a 9/16" hole located so the farthest edge of the hole is 25/64" off of center. Or rather, the bolt hole's back edge is 1/4" back farther than the stock hole. Sorry, it's hard to explain! I made it from stainless, no painting, no rusting. I made four of these, one for each side of each lower control arm OEM bracket.

The OEM bolt hole has fore and aft knockouts and tabs fore and aft to hold the 60 dollar bolt cam kit. The part I made fits tightly between those tabs so they can not slide.

Here's a pic of the part. I cut them out slightly long and ground on the back edge of them to fit very tightly between the tabs:


Here's the OEM lower control arm bolt hole before material removal:


I hogged out the so called 'knockout' toward the back of the vehicle to the exact edge of the 'knockout', which is 1/4" back from the edge of the original square bolt hole (they don't actually knock out, they just look like they do):


The following two photos are the parts installed, from the inside and the outside. I did not disconnect everything from the axle to take the pressure off of it.

I put jack stands under the frame behind the lower control arm rear frame brackets, took the tires off and rested the axle on another set of jack stands.

Then removed the lower control arm axle bracket bolts. I sprayed them with sili-kroil to loosen the rust, removed the nuts and punched the bolts out.

After hogging out the hole with a carbide bit in my die grinder, lining up the bracket hole, new alignment brackets with bolts and the control arm was a bit of a challenge working alone. I hooked up a ratchet strap that did a partial wrap of the axle so that when I tightened the strap, it would rotate the axle for more caster, which is what I wanted as the end game, right? after everything was lined up and the new alignment brackets were situated between the tabs, I hit them with the air wrench set on high!

nukeman

Great idea, hope it works for you. Love to see people trying new things! Personnaly, I haven't been fond of any eccentric adjutsments of caster since I had problem after problem on my last TJ with the rear end knockouts.

One question, did you remove the OEM star (retaining) washers from your wheel lugs prior to installing your new wheels? If your new wheels have a flat rear surface around the lug openings, those whashers won't let your wheels mount flush against your rotors. This will cause a wobble, like having really unbalanced tires.

pkdailey4

Good job, nice work

RedneckJeep

So...you did all this to save 60 bucks?

dsword

Yes, I did remove those retaining washers. Thanks!

dsword

I guess I really did it to save $230, the price of adjustable control arms.

I don't really trust the design of the cam bolt washers! Think about it, what's to keep those cams from slowly, very slowly, rotating from vibration?

Even if the bolts are torqued nice and tight, ya know? Mine won't change over time...

Besides, it took me 10 minutes to draw in Auto-CAD, I had to go to my tech school for something else, so while I was there, I cut them on a water-jet, time = 6 minutes. The time to install was no longer than if I was putting in the cam kit or new control arms, so that doesn't count.

So... 16 minutes, heck, let's round it up to 30 minutes, to save 60 bucks? Or better yet, to save 230 bucks! Heck yeah!

Dustoff '68

nice work.................

Renegade

I did something similar. I slotted the holes, then welded washers in place to keep the castor from changing. It's set at 5 degrees. What keeps yours from moving around?

dsword

Renegade,

As I discussed in the thread, there are tabs on the outsides of both control arm axle brackets, fore and aft, or a tab in front and a tab behind the hole. The bracket fits tightly between those tabs and also the bolt\nut holds them from slipping out of the tabs.

I hope I answered your question!

RedneckJeep

A good bit if you get the right parts, and do a CLEAN install, actually. There are cam bolts with "teeth" made into them to grip against the control arm brackets. I've been an alignment tech a long time and I can tell you that they WORK. When I say clean install, I mean just that. NO grease between the washers and bracket. This should be a no brainer, though. Not knocking your idea....in fact, if it's in spec, it's a pretty good one. There's just no reason to be afraid of good quality cam bolts, though.