kjeeper10

Take a measurement at the pinion and write it down. Should be around 1-3° positive.
If you do get a alignment for a caster reading you will now have a baseline. For example alignment says 3° positive caster and you read 2° at the pinion you know you need to lower it 1° to 1° to achieve 4° caster.

After setting one arm to 23-231/8, Take the other arm and place both together. Slide the bolts through to match the lengths.

Good choice on the Alpines, i know many people that like them.

nthinuf

Your sig indicates a 3" lift. What do you have now for caster correction? Adj uppers, brackets?

The DIY alignment writeup goes over everything, just follow the links to it.

Call around to a few alignment shops. Some will offer free checks, they throw it on the rack and print out the 'before' specs. Good info to have.

RiverCityOffroad

I'm a fan of having an alignment shop set the caster with the rack. Its far more accurate than you can get it with an angle finder in my personal opinion.

Set the caster between 5.2 and 5.5 degrees and that Jeep will drive down the road nice and straight.

MikeOK

To be honest I don’t even know what caster is yet. I now have only stock steering, and I’m not sure how they set everything. I had a 4x4 shop put the lift on for me. I know after they installed it my steering was perfect, no vibes and I thought it actually drove better than stock. If after I install these ca’s and it’s not perfect I’ll take it back to that shop. It’s Sam’s Offroad in Tulsa, well known but a little expensive.

I’m a fair mechanic, I used to do all my work on my motocross bikes, including rebuilding the engines top and bottom. But it’s a little easier to have a dirt bike down if you run into a kink, this Jeep is my daily drive so I don’t mind taking it to a shop for some things.

nthinuf

When you add a lift using stock control arms, the axles rotate. This raises the pinion and automatically lowers the caster. Low caster = flighty steering. Not 'better than stock' steering. So the shop might have installed some form of caster correction, maybe cam bolts since they are the cheapest? If this is the case, you might want to double check what you have.

Take a look at your front control arms where they bolt to the axle. Is there a big washer on both sides? ( the washer will be offset, like the hole is not drilled in the middle, but toward one edge) Or just snap a pic and post it.

MikeOK

No cam bolts. I don’t know how they adjusted it but whatever they did it was right on. No vibes, it went straight down the road, and articulated well.

resharp001

And no brackets on the frame side either?

nthinuf

Look at the bolt head and washer. This is a cam, with the offset washer.



Anyway, what we're getting at with these questions is that if you already have one form of caster correction, and you add a second one, you could end up with caster that is quite a bit higher or lower than you expect. Not a big deal with adjustable arms, just good to know what you're working with.

MikeOK

I looked inside and out, no cam bolt. I could see the little raised places in the bracket that the cam bolts push against but the bolt head/washer was about 1/4” from them. I would think that if I adjust the new ones to the same length as the old that it should be exactly as it was. Is there something I’m not seeing?

nthinuf

Yes, adjusting them to the same length would give the same caster you have now.

Sorry, I'm just confusing things. The question I had was -- how can you possibly have decent caster with 3" coils and no correction? Doesn't make sense. So again, was just trying to verify what you're working with.