Just had my vehicle checked again by alignment shop... my left caster is 4.8 and my right is 5.1.

I have Currie LCA's... anyone have an idea on how many more turns out to get to the magical 6-7 degrees I keep reading about?

I"m tired of going and paying the bucks to see. Steering is ok but I would like to see what is like at this magical number.

When I say ok it's not horrible but it's not great either.

If anyone has my same lift (which a several of you do) Would you happen to have the measurement from LCA center bolt to center bolt to give me an idea how far a may be off in order to get to 6-7 degrees of caster.

Appreciate it..

 

I thought the upper arms controled the caster good be wrong

 

The LCA's do control the caster.

The amount of adjustment needed can vary slightly on each side, if you have a lift and don't have a adjustable front track bar (not a hard requirement) to recenter. I have the Clayton lower control arms and they have a slightly number of turns on each side.


I understand your frustration, but of curiosity, why don't they adjust the LCAs to get 6 deg when they perform the alignment? Isn't that what you are paying for?

 

The 6-7deg caster you see here is via an angle finder placed under the axle C. It does not directly relate to the numbers coming from an alignment machine.



I'd suggest running to the hardware or autoparts store and grabbing an inexpensive angle finder, and then checking this write-up.

http://project-jk.com/jeep-jk-write-...-end-alignment

Either will let you adjust the caster. Uppers are less expensive, but since they are 'shortened' to increase caster, they do not have the range of adjustment that lowers do.

 

I'm on vacation and over 1,000 miles away from home. After driving this far in the JK I got to figure out what I like and don't like...

Angle finder is at home...think is showed 7 or 8 degrees maybe more... but on two different alignment machines it's showing 4.5 on left and 5.1 on right side.

I'm out in the sticks of IL and the only place was sears to check alignment and they would not adjust out of spec which as you know is 4.5.

I guess I have another question now... when people are talking about the 6-7 degree of caster I thought most had verified this number via alignment shop and not the angle finder???

So does anyone have a check and balance with alignment shop number and angle finder? There is no direct correlation.

If I increase 2 degrees on angle finder it's not a true 2 degrees.

thoughts>>>

 

where in Illinois are you at ?

 

Cameron IL... between Monmouth and Galesburg.

 

Ok, I would offer a hand but that is a pretty good drive from me.

 

redroc...

really appreciate the offer. I'm heading back home to NC on Monday and I have had some time to kill over the past two weeks.

Just very curious if adjusting my caster from where it is today 4.5 and 5.1 to the magical 6-7 will make that great of a difference.

When I first put on the lift it was very flighty... Currie LCA's really helped out... now I'm just in fine tune mode. With this lift and the 35 mtrs the jeep is going to find most of the grooves in the road and have a slight wander or twitch I think.. dunno. Driving back to IL and about 1200 miles in two days I had plenty of time to second guess everything and think maybe a bit more caster will help tighten everything up... it's not a car and it does not ride like my 4 door F-150... so I'm just trying to get the ultimate ride with what I have.

Air pressure was 28psi for the first 700 miles then I dropped it to 26psi the second day to see if anything changed... not that I could tell.

My caster question is still out there...

 

Angle finders measure straight lines
Alignment machines measure in an arc - or some type of non-straight line, anyway

Can't compare the two (then again, maybe some of you math geniuses could figure something out for that?)

If you have tools with you, extend them a 1/2 turn and see how much it improves. My guess would be that a full turn longer would be a good place to end up.

--Just reread your post. If you're close to 8deg on the angle finder, guess I wouldn't go too much further. 1/2 turn either way and see how it feels.