I have an alignment question while we're on the subject.....lift obviously affects caster but equally left and right or only on one side? Mine is out of spec only on the driver side and I'm wondering if that's typical of a spacer lift.

 

Sending a PM now.

 

Caster is tied into the rotational position of the axle itself, on both sides. Add taller coils or coil spacers, the pinion rotates up, and the caster, on both sides, goes down. Install brackets or new arms, the pinion rotates down, and the caster, on both sides, goes up. (I suppose if you got a lot more lift on one side than the other, like you were shipped a wrong coil or something, that might affect the caster on just one side more?)

If caster is off with a new axle housing, and you want to correct just one side, one set of adjustable control arms will do the trick, just set one side longer/shorter to twist the housing. The second set of arms would allow you to reposition the axle forward/backward, and give more fine tuning. Cam Bolts would do the trick as well, though many people do not like using them. Adjustable ball joints might also work, but I would go with arms first.

 

so if it's a stock jeep would a possibility be a bent control arm?

 

It's possible, but those arms can generally take a surprising amount of flogging before they bend. Have you been pretending you are an Ultra 4 driver lately?

IMO if you have a caster issue with a stock Jeep, something is bent, I would figure out what is bent before I start throwing parts at it. Check control arm mounts and control arms. It's also possible that you have a bad control arm bushing that is throwing the whole thing out of spec, I'd check those too.

 

Thanks, I've checked the BallJoints by jacking up the tire and prying up (no movement or clunk) how does one check control arm bushings? Also it's not totally stock I have 2" spacers on the front coils.

 

Should be fairly obvious. Look for a cracked or deformed bushing. You can stick a pry bar in the pockets and crank on them, if you see things shifting around you probably have a blown bushing. Put the Jeep on the ground and drop the control arm and take a look at the bushing.

 

You could also snap some pics of the brackets and bushings, maybe someone here will notice something that you miss.