Alignment, Caster, Clearance, and Driving Report with Light Racing UCAs

Question being.. how does it drive with 4° of caster? Isn’t somewhere @ 3° best? Just wondering the differences..

Thanks

 

I run 3.3* and 3.7* and it tracks great. I had it at 4.3*/4.7* and the steering was too heavy.

 

Do you know where the SPC logo sits when set at E??

 

Diagram doesn’t show where SPC logo sits.. i think they are at D ‘neutral’ now with the round side facing in towards cab.. i will check to make sure they made proper adjustment to ball joint.. I’m at alignment shop now. I can see the offset hex outside outside the uca

 

The flat spot on the uca is where the logo is. Position D

 

With the lowers maxed out and upper set at E all i can get is 2.3 on driver side.. sound right?

 

I’m quoting this older post to hope to clear the air for me. So if I do either option one or option two on a 2nd gen, what do I need to exactly tell the alignment shop? Say I do the first one, do I ask for 3* castor and camber at 0*? Also tell them to adjust castor from ONLY the uca?

 

I’d like to confirm as well so that I don’t end up spending hours dealing with confused alignment techs...

 

It really took me a bit to wrap my head around this.. and I’m still learning but after going through this with SPC and a couple alignment techs i feel as if i can help..

Tell them to max out your LCA cams (if clearance on cab mount/fender is an issue) and adjust upper ball joint accordingly Position E or F will probably be where you need to be for caster. And camber can be adjusted from where the nut is positioned. Depends on how much lift and every truck is a bit different.

I wouldn’t give them numbers to shoot for b/c they could give you the numbers you are looking for with the ball joint in the wrong position and get the numbers right. I did this the hard way!! I gave them the #s and it rubbed worse than ever!! Just make sure you have their attention and explain that you need the tire moved forward (if that’s what you need) and the SPCs let you do this b/c they are adjustable.

Hope this helps.. I had one shop completely ignore everything i told them and just put them at neutral and put me in factory specs (rubbed everywhere).

Second shop wouldn’t touch em (told me to get smaller tires)

Third shop listened and worked with me got it to drive great and stop rubbing

Good luck

 

Not terrible, surprised they couldn’t get any more at that position.


How’s it ride? How’s the clearance?

 

Perfect!! No more rub!!

 

After going to a few local shops f inally found a tech that understood what I was looking for and got these numbers with spc's set in D position man does it drive nice

 

Awesome.

 

Goin this week I will have to show them this. Just need to make a decision on what tires I want

 

Toyojo Are your LCA set for max caster ( front in, back out) or did he have to back off the LCA adjust max to get your caster where its at?

 

I would think it is.. mine are set at E and i have 1° less caster with my driver side maxed but I’m only speculating

 

I wish from the begining of this thread each time someone posted their printout they also would add what position the UCA's are set at and their lift height . I realize if you back track through the last couple pages ya may see where it was mentioned but it gets time consuming in a thread this long. With just that little bit of info listed many of us would not even need an alignment shop. Seemed like for a while on this thread it was a given to max out the the caster on the lowers , set UCA to D setting 0 camber and toe to 0 and you would be 3-3.5 degrees of caster . That would get most people so close the half wits at the alignment shop should be able to fine tune the caster just to give a slight increase to the passenger side for the crown of the road compensation.

 

Sounds right.. yea it confused me for a bit.. I’m still wondering if my truck would drive any better if i set my uppers at D to gain more caster.. it dives great now and I’m at 2.2° & 2.3° (In factory specs) On position E with driver LCA maxed and passenger LCA close to max..

 

I started with D then went to E now back to D with the lowers maxed out for caster with a hair less on the drivers side front cam with hopes to end up with a hair less caster on the drivers side. It seemed like it took a little more correcting when driving with them at E setting and I still have enough clearance at D setting with 34" 305-70-17 tires on 17x9 -12 wheels tires with about 2.75" lift. Drives good , nice return to center. Eventually I will get it in an alignment shop for $hits and Giggles.

EDIT : The D-E-D switching back and forth was my own fault . I kept telling myself I needed some toe in no matter what the specs are which just caused caused a steering wheel shimmy every time I hit some rough road and not knowing it was toe causing it for me. Through trial and error I ended up at 0 toe and all was better so I went back to D for a little more caster and curiosity. Its all part of my learning curve being I haven't had any thing but Jeeps for toys since Toyota stopped using straight axles in 1985.