On my 98 D1, What is the best way to change the front pinion angle? I have a 2 inch lift which I know everyone is going to say the pinion angle shouldn't be affected but I measured it last night.. I put an electronic angle finder on the front drive shaft and zero'd it. I then placed in on the flat spot on the bottom of the front diff and it read 8.9 degrees.. The diff looks like it's pointing up. Rear diff was also measured, with the angle finder zero'd on the rear drive shaft, the rear diff is pointing down about 4 degrees. Am I measuring this correctly? Or is the angle measurement supposed to be the difference between the center diff and front or rear diff? Thanks.
Pinion Angle Question.
- Thread starter LRDONE
- Start date
Angles should be measured on the flanges, compared to each other.. Driveshaft being mostly irrelevant.
To correct those angles and your caster, you need Caster correction arms. Or could drill new holes in the hubs and turn them as another user suggested.
Once you get the arms and get caster corrected, you'll find some bad vibrations. You will need a double Cardan driveshaft on the front as the axle will be parallel to the DS, and at transfer case will be the angle change, thus necessitating a double cardan DS.
After lifting 2-3" myself, the rear was also a problem, I added spacers to my canted trailing arms to rotate the rear axle, and get flange angled to match.
To correct those angles and your caster, you need Caster correction arms. Or could drill new holes in the hubs and turn them as another user suggested.
Once you get the arms and get caster corrected, you'll find some bad vibrations. You will need a double Cardan driveshaft on the front as the axle will be parallel to the DS, and at transfer case will be the angle change, thus necessitating a double cardan DS.
After lifting 2-3" myself, the rear was also a problem, I added spacers to my canted trailing arms to rotate the rear axle, and get flange angled to match.
Reading through this thread might also help you some.
discoweb.org
Front output Shaft, Bearing, Flange play, new Driveshafts, axle angles.
So I heard some noise and viberations on Deceleration at 75 mph coming from the front end. Got home and I shaked the drive shafts to find the 'front output' kinda loose like the flange was "wobbling". So upon lots of reading on here I was under the impression the front output bearing was bad...
discoweb.org
Thank you for the response. So I actually have read through that at one point, I'll read again. I was confused as to how I should be measuring, however you cleared that up for me. And funny thing, I have the same decel vibration at the same mph. I have no problem putting arms on the truck I was just under the impression that I shouldn't need to with a minimal lift.Reading through this thread might also help you some.
Front output Shaft, Bearing, Flange play, new Driveshafts, axle angles.
So I heard some noise and viberations on Deceleration at 75 mph coming from the front end. Got home and I shaked the drive shafts to find the 'front output' kinda loose like the flange was "wobbling". So upon lots of reading on here I was under the impression the front output bearing was bad...
The entire driveline is canted a couple of degrees towards the rear. There's going to be a large front pinion-to-front t-case output angle, and less - in the rear. The Land Rover dealt with the rear by installing a Rotoflex (which works as a cheap CV joint), and in front - by oddball 45-degrees-out-of-phase front driveshaft.
As far as correcting the pinion angles - consider that the only way to reduce the difference in front is to rotate the axle assembly downwards, so the front pinion is closer to the ground. My WAG is that it will either achieve nothing or make things worse - the factory front driveshaft will not vibrate less by reducing the angle between the pinions, but the static bend angles on both U-joints will be larger.
As far as correcting the pinion angles - consider that the only way to reduce the difference in front is to rotate the axle assembly downwards, so the front pinion is closer to the ground. My WAG is that it will either achieve nothing or make things worse - the factory front driveshaft will not vibrate less by reducing the angle between the pinions, but the static bend angles on both U-joints will be larger.
On my Defender 90, a front DC helped but I go through UJ's more often than usual.
Sometimes it will.
I found on most of my D1s/Classics the rear driveshaft being 90% of all vibrations. Yet, the most-lifted D1 never had driveline vibrations (excluding driving from Colorado to San Diego with a bent driveshaft).
I went down the rabbit hole of drive shaft and pinion angles today, just to sum it all up. What I learned is that on this full time 4wd set up, the front will never be 100% but instead you can get it close and deal with whatever vibrations it creates. Its my understanding that the single u-joint on each end will never work perfectly up front because like you said, the whole driveline is canted to the rear and for the front pinion angle to match, the pinion would have to point so far to the ground that the drive shaft angle would be way past the danger zone. I learned that the double cardan joint should be set up with the front pinion straight with the driveshaft and the double cardan joint should handle the rest as longs as the operating angles on the double end are below 10 degrees. I read that ideally you want a double double cardan joint in the front but.. because of the driveshaft weight it can induce higher speed vibrations. I think getting the pinion angle to match up with what's required for the double cardan joint in the front is what I'm gonna try and then for the rear, because the driveline is canted in the rears favor, I think I can get those to line up parallel and use the stock driveshaft with a u-joint on each end or buy a stock drive shaft that uses the same u-joint as the front will.
I drove it home from work last night with the front driveshaft removed and a lot of my vibrations went away but not totally so I'm just going to correct the front and the rear as best I can, what ever vibrations from that point I'll just live with. At least I'll know it's set up as good as it can be because the way it is now is not good and I'm gonna break something real soon lol. Does all of that sound about right? I appreciate the help.
Yup, sounds about right!
You should sort out the rear vibration while the front shaft is still off. Best time to is all. If you read through my post I went through all this myself.. And yeah, on AWD you just get the front DS 'good enough'; and I found adjustment of the panhard rod to remove any side angles got the front DS to remain silent.
Here are the 17$ spacer I used on the rear trailing arms to clean up rear pinion angle, buy 2 as they sell single..
You should sort out the rear vibration while the front shaft is still off. Best time to is all. If you read through my post I went through all this myself.. And yeah, on AWD you just get the front DS 'good enough'; and I found adjustment of the panhard rod to remove any side angles got the front DS to remain silent.
Here are the 17$ spacer I used on the rear trailing arms to clean up rear pinion angle, buy 2 as they sell single..
How far off was your rear? I have the same lift and same no added weight as you. It's really sitting close to a 3 inch lift.
There was a time when RimmerBros were selling castor-corrected swivel balls - don't think they care anymore.
With factory ball housings, you need to calculate by how much you need to offset the holes, and re-drill them. In practice, you end up hogging out the factory holes into elongated ugliness. The pair I bought long time ago for my D1 looked horrendous, yet, not a single bolt ever came loose.
If you measured the pattern and made a nice drilling jig, I think you could offer this as a service.
But... guess what, some exist: https://www.ebay.com/itm/331410395355
I forgot but I'm thinking the rear pinion was 4-5 degrees mismatched with the T case. It chewed up a new flex joint in 100 miles.
Got the UJ conversation DS and rear flange from luck8llc. If you rear my post near the end has this information better written.
The spacers are 10mm thick 12mm would have probably been best but 10mm got me to about 1.0-1.5 degrees difference and was silent enough it's staying that way.
I also had to add 1" of blocks underneath my RR spring to get truck leveled. This also pushed my rear/lift up higher ~1/2".. Are you level with these springs, or does it still have "the rover lean"???
Got the UJ conversation DS and rear flange from luck8llc. If you rear my post near the end has this information better written.
The spacers are 10mm thick 12mm would have probably been best but 10mm got me to about 1.0-1.5 degrees difference and was silent enough it's staying that way.
I also had to add 1" of blocks underneath my RR spring to get truck leveled. This also pushed my rear/lift up higher ~1/2".. Are you level with these springs, or does it still have "the rover lean"???
I converted the rear driveshaft in the D1 to UJ version (using 97+ D1 driveshaft, rear yoke and spacer). No changes in driveline vibrations, but it went from using a new Roto donut every 15k miles to using nothing.
I did the same thing for my 95 LWB Classic using BPUtah kit - and it was horrendous. The driveshaft was completely vibration-free for 500 miles, when went to shit. BPUtah likely built the driveshafts using some leftover used yokes, and at least two bearing caps were shimmed with steel foil.
I did the same thing for my 95 LWB Classic using BPUtah kit - and it was horrendous. The driveshaft was completely vibration-free for 500 miles, when went to shit. BPUtah likely built the driveshafts using some leftover used yokes, and at least two bearing caps were shimmed with steel foil.
I was just going to say I found some. I like the idea of making mine exactly what I need but we will see. I need to measure and go from there. Maybe 3 degree is all I need.
My rear shaft was converted when I got the truck. Not sure what brand but it's got two u-joints. I've already burnt up two since I've owned it.