Increasing Pinion, Decreasing Caster, Getting Coil Bow?

I'm working on the front end of my MJ with 5" lift.

I've been adjusting my UCAs and LCAs to rotate my front axle and get the pinion back to normal .... which is decreasing my caster. Thats going ok I guess, but the axle rotation is starting to slightly bow my coil springs.

Is this a problem? What can I do about it?

I'd like to increase caster a bit to get the prings back to vertical, but I know that will push pinion back down ......

Caster is more important in my opinion than pinion angle. Are you eating through u-joints on the front shaft, lots of vibrations?

I would rotate it back to gain a little caster, and straighten the springs back out.

The more I think about this, the more confused I get.

How would anyone with 5.5" or more of lift be able to rotate the axle forward enough to correct pinion without getting a bend in their coils?

You don't need to get the driveshaft and pinion yoke perfectly in line up front, you probably just got carried away. I think 7* caster is ideal setting. If you go too far forward not only will the springs bend but you will start to have negative steering issues, wandering, darting,DW, etc.

robsjeepxj said:

You don't need to get the driveshaft and pinion yoke perfectly in line up front, you probably just got carried away.

Click to expand...

LoL - thas HAS been known to happen.

I just measured my caster and its at 5. I'll back off the rotation to get around 6.5 ... that should straighten my springs out nicely.

Thanks for the input.

5 degrees is really not that bad, and i think is pretty close to factory tolerances.