1st Gen. Lunch Table - General Discussion

aka TMA - Throwing Money Away light

 

I average about $65-70/tank. When I took the drive up to pick up the free skid plate from one of our later-gen forum members this weekend, Pump stopped at $77.72.

 

Could someone help me understand the value of replacement LCA's? $1200 gets you better caster? For a mild lift of 2-3", the ROI seems uncertain to me. Do the LCA's typically fail or break or get smashed doing mellow driving?

Or is the LCA replacement mostly about long travel or real rock crawling stuff?

 

The SOLO stock length LCAs are mostly about improved road manners with a 2-4" lift as far as I can tell. More caster without using adjustable UCAs that pull the wheel into the body when caster is added.
They will also make more room for larger tires to keep them off of the body. (albeit into the front bumper if still stock)
I've not heard of any LCA failures. Lots of LBJ failures, but the SOLO arms use the stock LBJ. So any 'improvement in strength' is moot.
They claim to offer improved ground clearance, but I'm not sure there's an appreciable difference from stock arms.

 

So improved manners translates to smoother feel at the wheel or less what specifically?

I need to do more reading on castor, I've read a bunch and still don't really understand how it affects driving.

 

All the pics ive seen have a single hole for the lbj. And stock has this whole 4 bolt bracket thing?

 

The tendency of the steering wheel to self-center is an effect of positive caster.
Too little causes a jittery steering wheel. This is the primary reason that gnarly off-road jeeps (oft with close to zero caster) are terrifying to drive above 30mph.
Too much makes the steering heavy.
Finding the sweet spot for each chassis will help with tracking on the freeway as well as the self-centering.

The 4 bolts are on the knuckle.
Single hole on LCA.

 

Positive caster makes steering heavier and makes the vehicle want to straighten out. Negative caster makes steering easier, but introduces more wandering.

moving the lbj forward is positive caster.

 

$10 bucks to fill an escort..... did it burn when you peed afterward?

 

if i avert my eyes while im under there the lbj’s will stay together out of mutual respect.

 

Thanks guys, that was really helpful. I guess I've been reading stuff written by people who assume that part is already known. So, lift + bigger tires would naturally decrease castor? Potentially moving it out of range? And new LCA's allows pushing the ball joint forward to allow for an increase of castor to offset the lift + bigger tires?

 

Effectively, I can drive it post lift, tires and alignment at 80 mph and decide if I want to consider LCA's based on the road manners and how "jittery" the steering wheel is, provided the wheels are properly balanced?

 

@chrisb nailed it. The real benefits to those arms are added caster, ability to fit a bigger tire by moving the tire forward (away from the body), and bushings that will feel more stable and possibly stay more aligned.

They're using solid poly bushings rather than the semi hollow compliance rubber bushings that our arms come with. That is a plus but comes with a minus because poly squeaks like mad if you don't keep it lubricated. A bit more maintenance is not a deal breaker as long as you can do it yourself.

Ground clearance I can't see a gain on, and strength is a maybe at the eyelets. These are probably lighter than stock arms by quite a bit. I'm a bit surprised they don't offer then with secondary shock mounts rather than the sway bar tab, maybe they will offer that option later.

 

thats where you start getting deep into specifics. The height of the control arm bushings relative to ‘level’ changes caster through travel, and ‘lean’ of the knuckle from vertical changes caster through steering…

so, sitting in the middle of your travel is different than sitting at the top or bottom of travel.

 

@daveeasa When I lifted my 3rd gen T4R, it made the steering lighter and you could really feel it at freeway speeds. If I'd introduced more [positive] caster, it would have felt better.

 

Doesnt really work on a phone, but in high school while everyone else was playing playstation, i was fiddling with programs like this.

https://www.racingaspirations.com/apps/classic-suspension-geometry-calculator/

https://www.racingaspirations.com/apps/suspension-geometry-calculator/

 

This is precisely what I'm aiming to understand. As in "how can I best observe the effects of a lift and bigger tires and evaluate what (if any) additional parts I might want." Lighter steering at high speed is now on my list of things to evaluate. Thanks. I'm still sort of settling into the different feel of the new tie rods and I'm in need of an alignment to start from a known good state post tie-rod, lift and wheel swap.

 

Looks like someone has a rusted frame!

 

So is that what happens when the shackle rusts apart? lol

My brother had the same almost happen to him at 75K miles before he fixed it.

 

It'll feel "floaty" on the freeway, meaning little things move the truck around more, it gets pushed by wind and imperfections in the road. It's hard to explain, but easy to
feel.

How much lift and what size tires are you going with?

On my 01 AC (don't have it anymore) with a 3 inch lift, caster was basically 0 and I could feel it on the road. Got SPC uca's and it was much better. Went to 2.8 caster. I then got new tires and went from 265/70/16 to 265/70/17 tires so they fit no problem. I tried 285's and got lots of rubbing.

 

Oh, that's interesting. I haven't put the wheels on yet but they are 285/75R16. I have SPC UCA's and Fox 2.5's but still waiting on the rear shocks and I haven't driven it since the deaver leaf pack went on. I think 33's are as big as I wish to go tire-wise b/c I want to stay on 16x7.5 and I want to be able to stash the spare under the bed.

I've definitely noticed road feel as I haul with my bro in law using his Freightliner and Ram 5500. You notice more on long hauls with heavy loads how all that stuff plays out. Granted solid axle fronts are different from IFS feel-wise but the subtlety of steering I am keenly aware of.

Before today I knew castor only as a number which I wanted to keep within the proper range but I didn't know _why_ that was important. Thanks everyone for the education on that part. I thought it was more about tire and suspension part wear than steering manners.

 

So if it moves the wheel forward, I'm guessing it moves the bottom of the spindle lower, but the UBJ stays the same. Does it put it in a bind or is it too little to make a difference?

Also, my truck doesn't self center, and is kinda squirly. Maybe I need them.

 

My truck was feeling a bit squirrely at speed. They had the caster +1.5-2. I took it back and had them put the caster at closer to +3, like every other time it was aligned. Feels great.

 

Anyone want my old battery tray? It's for the smaller size. Pay for shipping and envelope.

 

https://youtu.be/ummIl-qzatM

 

Whatcha end up replacing it with?

 

An OEM tray for the larger 27F.

 

Ah, I see. My OEM tray has a crack in it, but your smaller one won't fit my battery. Eventually I'd like to look into a full-on cage that's mounted.

 

Paging @Darkness