diff wedges help?

[Twistinchassie]

G day all,

im running a leaf set up off a dual cab lux that was fitted with droped front hangers. fitted to a ln60 85 runner

as being on apprentice wages, its not really an option to get my diff rotated, or to get a dropped crossmemeber/hangers fitted as i have been quoted more than a few weeks work, lol. so i thought some caster/diff wedges should remedy my extreme front drive shaft angle, im running about 4-5in custom kingsprings, diff moved 1in forward, spacer, snake hangers to the rear, and std spring purch front, what angle do the wegdes have to be, has any one done this or have specs on bought ones i can copy.

cheers jamie

[dazza30875]

I was looking at Ford F250 ones myself i have a pair here they are only 8 degrees and push the diff forward about 3/4 on an inch. don't remomber what modle they come off but just ring a F truck yard to find out. cheers

[RAY185]

Get a wheel aligner to check and tell you, that takes the guess work out.

[Spimon_NH]

Just be aware (ignore this if you already know it), when you rotate your front diff, it also changes your caster, not just the drive shaft angle.
I think the general rule of thumb is about 2.5 degrees for every 2" of lift (don't quote me on that).
This can mess with your 'straight line' steering and how much effort it takes to turn the wheels.
Don't get too carried away with the drive shaft angle if it's going to mess up other things.

[Twistinchassie]

yeh cheers, im actually hoping to correct the caster back to std or close, it makes life steering extra hard at the moment until i get a manual steering box as a non assisted powersteering box is making the arms bigger lol!

[benhl]

Firstly lift will not affect castor either way as it simply spaces the diff away from the body in a parralell plane, it will only impact pinion angle. Extended shackles will affect both in a negative fashion. Hence the need to dropped front hangars with ext shackles and not with bif lifted leaf springs.

I have done what you intend to do with 3" lifted springs, re-drilled front perches and castor wedges with extended shackles on the front of a 94 comp spec lux. i ended taking out the ext shackles in the end to match front lift to rear but left the wedges in and it wasn't a noticable difference to when they were in with ext shackles.

Go as big as you can 3 - 5 degrees will do i would think. This will drastically improve pinion angle and counter the ill effects of ext shackles. NB a little bit of positive castor wont hurt anywhere as near as bad as negative castor will (i think the + and - are the right way around )

Easy to do and will help drivability and relieve pinion stress as well as counter the diff rotation due to ext shackles.

[Twistinchassie]

oh ok so ur running a std front spring eye hanger, with rear extention shackles and the castor wedges? did u fab up the wedges?

Cheers Jamie