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

Sorry, forgot to add that info. With the addition of some thicker top plate spacers yesterday, I’m right around 2.75” in the front now (OME 885s with 1/2” spacer on the driver’s side and 1/4” spacer on the passenger side). And yes, the toe is terrible right now so I’m looking forward to getting that back within spec to see how the truck drives compared to the stock UCAs.

 

Yup I would go D then. I rubbed the front of the fender at E and kept trimming then switched to D still had to trim some more but eventually all was good . Then me being typical me can't leave things alone and removed my front sway bar so now Im back to trim a little drive some more trim some more and its still at the front . In the back side of the wheel well I flattened the pinch welds long ago and have yet to touch the cab mount with tools or the tire .... so far. I have 34" tires on 17x9 -12 offset.

 

Hmm... I’ll be running the 7.5” wide OEM Sport wheels with 1.25” spacers which takes them to about a -2 offset. I really don’t want to have to touch the cab mount and the new tires are not quite a full 33 inches. I think they’re really more like 32.8 inches.

But now I’m really wondering if D wouldn’t be better. I had them originally set in the D position but switched them to E before we torqued everything down. I think I’ll go outside and take some measurements with the steering wheel fully turned and see how much clearance I have in the front and back with my current 265/70/17 tires and make the decision based on that. I know the D setting will get me more caster in the end but I just really don’t want to ever have to touch the cab mount if I can avoid it.

 

At 2.75" of lift that will most likely dictate D over E to get enough caster and Camber more so than what size tires you have

 

Ok, so you’re saying you don’t think I’ll be able to get to +3° of caster with the ball joint in setting E at 2.75” of lift?

 

If you read this thread you will see as you near the later parts of it what I told you was pretty much the generic setting for a little over three degrees caster , good camber starting with less lift than you have . You mentioned you looked like your tires are closer to the front of your wheel well at E well D will move it back a little. As I said I have much taller and wider tires than Yo and I have yet to rub on the cab mount

 

Anyone using the C setting? It seems like E points the ball joint towards the spring, which caused it to hit my spring at full droop. I switched to D with rear cams all out and front cams centered, and it is still close to the spring, but is much better. Was thinking of trying C. Thoughts?

 

Well, just got the 285/70/17 tires mounted on my 7.5” wide stock TRD Sport wheels with 1” spacers. That puts me at about a +5 offset currently. Also got an alignment. Ended up switching back to the D setting on the UCAs and thankfully the alignment tech listened to me. He didn’t touch the lower control arm cams and only did adjustments on the UCA and the tie rod ends. As you can see, camber wasn’t terrible but my toe was atrocious after the UCA install. Also, the before measurement was taken with the UCA in the E setting.

And as it sits right now, no rubbing on the cab mount. It’s not even close on level ground and didn’t rub even during a hard turn over a large curb. However, with the current 1” spacers, I’m rubbing the inside of the front plastic fender liner on both sides turning a full turn. I’ve got 1.25” spacers I’ll be installing and if it still rubs it looks like I’m going to have to do some trimming or some heating. I’m perfectly fine with that as I’d much rather mess with the front than the back. Anyway, here are my stats and the alignment sheet:

Lift: 2.75”
LCA Cams : Max Caster
SPC UCA Setting: D

 

If they would of set the caster numbers switched side per side with the larger caster on passenger side it would be perfect. For some reason more often than not the specs people post for caster are backwards like yours are but after all the BS most have to go through to get that close they just call it good and live with it .

 

I bought the one year alignment policy so I can technically go back as many times as I want in the next year. I could have them tweak things using the lower control arms next time if I want.

 

Thats the usual way with these arms . We as owner/installer set the lowers to max caster and the uppers to D for caster and 0 for camber so the alignment shop don't have to touch the uppers . This way they do their part by only adjusting the lowers to get it perfect.

 

So I went back and read some of your other posts @08RC and I’m curious about toe. I noticed on my drive home that the steering wheel was still moving quite a bit over any harsh bump and I’m wondering if I don’t need to get my toe down closer to 1/32nd. Unless that feeling can also be caused by worn tie rod ends seeing as mine are original and have 106k miles on them now.

I figure with the one year alignment package, I could replace the outer tie rod ends before I have it realigned.

 

Mine does the same thing ever since I lifted it . I hit some slightly rough road and he steering wheel will quiver a little. I have new wheel bearings, inner and outer tie rod ends, ecg bushing, new upper and lower controlarms. I have a new set of Rack and Pinion mounting bushings to try next . I am accumulating all of the parts that will most likly get trashed in the process and metric flarenut wrench . Every line in the way looks like its 150 years old . I can believe how bad these things rust. I have adjusted toe in from 0 to 1/8 in 1/32 increments and that had no effect on it. if this don't cure it I may sell it and go back to Jeep.

 

I went in to get my alignment today. They asked for specific numbers, I told the tech to push the LCA ball joints as far forward as he could get it. This is what I got. This seems to me like he put it all back to the stock location.

 

You should have give him the numbers. 3* 0* 0* ... Looks like he went to far back on caster.

 

I just read the OP and this makes a lot of sense. I’ve always thought this when I read about people having high caster and complaining about rubbing. People tend to think more caster = more cab mount clearance for some reason. Just picture caster as looking at the tire from the side view in the wheel well. The tire at the bottom moved away from the rear of the vehicle = more caster. the top moved “closer” to the rear = more caster. the goal for most that are rubbing is moving the whole tire away from the rear cab mount/pinch weld area while still having a good driving alignment. It’s a fine balance of actually having just enough caster for good handling and enough clearance.

I’m deff picking up some SPC’s when I do my lift!

 

Thought I would chime in with my experiences thus far.

I'm lifted +1.75" up front and +1.5" in the rear. My first alignment was done with caster completely maxed out, but toe was terrible and had steering wheel way off center after alignment. Cab clearance was pretty good at this point. UCA caster setting was set to D and lowers were maxed.

Next went to Firestone to get another alignment mainly to just fix toe and camber. Told them keep the caster high, but did not specifically tell them to not touch caster (I'm guessing with the UCAs being at D and max caster on the lowers, i was probably pushing 4 degrees of caster which is was over the specs). Salesman didnt seem to understand what I was getting at and just said the machine will set the caster. Left the shop and immediately had rubbing at full lock over bumps while turning. Tires were rubbing on the cab mount pretty significantly. Brought it home and realized they took out basically all of the caster. To top it off, their "printer was broke" so they did not give me the before and after readings.

Got it home and took off the UCA nuts and readjusted the caster plates to setting F. Then maxed the caster on the lower control arms and put the front lower camber bolts to neutral (i first maxed this out as well but totally the toe was totally out of whack and putting camber bolts back to neutral seemed to help).

Made some minor adjustments to toe and took for a test spin. So far no rubbing on the cab mount at all, and just a slight minor rub at the front on the bottom of the fender. Easy trimming will take care of that.

Next step is to bring it back to Firestone and specifically tell them to only adjust camber and toe. I'm expecting since I am at the F cast setting (-1.75) on the uppers and maxed out caster on the lowers, i should be well within the manufacturer's caster spec range and hopefully they don't touch caster at all.

Will let you know how it goes.

 

I got 5 on it! Learning how to play with these UCA’s.

 

Wow. What setting did you have the top plate at?