Driveshaft Angle

Your front DS angle will be dictated by your castor angle. Which on a stock jeep is 4 degrees. If you do not have adjustable lower control arms you will not be able to make the adjustment.

Edit: essentially your adjustment will be a dance between a flightly feeling and driveline vibration by having either too much or too little castor angle. But somewhere around 4 degrees should be a good starting point. Some manufacturers recommend 6 degrees of castor, but frankly I think that is carry over recomendation from older jeeps and lifts.
 
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I have adjustable lca's. which is how I set the caster after the lift. I was just wondering what the stock angle of the front drive shaft was pre-lift.


- aaron

Sent from the WAYALIFE app
 
aaronstephen said:
I have adjustable lca's. which is how I set the caster after the lift. I was just wondering what the stock angle of the front drive shaft was pre-lift.
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Sorry, don't know but really, it doesn't matter as you will not be able to get it back to that angle again. Now that you're lifted, it will be steeper than before.
 
aaronstephen said:
Even with an aftermarket DS?
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You install an aftermarket driveshaft because of it. You need to think of your drive shaft as being the hypotenuse of a triangle and if you increase the height of your Jeep, the angle of that triangle will be effected accordingly.
 
aaronstephen said:
How bad does this look?

View attachment 26490
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Looks like what I would expect to see on a 2012 JK with 3" of lift. Sooner than later, the pinch in the CV boot will cause it to tear and that will ultimately lead to its failure. You'll know when you're about there when you start to see grease spitting out from the joint. When that happens, you will need to get a new shaft.
 
aaronstephen said:
Any way to drop the transfer case a tad to help like you could with the XJ's?
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First off, I personally wouldn't want to lower anything especially after spending as much money as I'm sure you have just to get all that stuff higher off the ground. Second, you need to understand that your motor to transfer case is already sitting at a pretty steep angle, steeper than an 07-11 and lowering the transfer case would only increase that angle. If anything, you would want to raise your transfer case up to help ease your drive line angle but, unless you install a body lift, I don't think you'd have too much room to work with and really, I don't think it would be worth it. Really, your best option is to just replace your factory drive shaft with an aftermarket double cardan u-joint style one.
 
Rivertoys said:
Pretty good article on this topis:

http://www.quadratec.com/jeep_knowledgebase/article-3.htm
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This really old Tom Woods article is good but really only applies to the rear axle. Up front, you can't just set your pinion in line with your drive shaft as that will effectively give you negative caster - something you REALLY DON'T WANT. As mentioned earlier, the best you can do is find a balance between good caster and drive line angle.
 
I know I have this trouble coming.... would you say it's more important to get the front driveshift replaced as the priority, or both are equal priority?
 
Rivertoys said:
I know I have this trouble coming.... would you say it's more important to get the front driveshift replaced as the priority, or both are equal priority?
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I see that you're only running a 2.5" lift on a manual 2009 JK. With that, I think you should be okay running your factory shaft for a good amount of time. If you decide to go taller, your rear shaft is what you'll need to replace first as it is really short and will put a good pinch in your CV boots. When you do replace it, you will need to get adjustable rear upper arms to set your pinion angle.
 
wayoflife said:
I see that you're only running a 2.5" lift on a manual 2009 JK. With that, I think you should be okay running your factory shaft for a good amount of time. If you decide to go taller, your rear shaft is what you'll need to replace first as it is really short and will put a good pinch in your CV boots. When you do replace it, you will need to get adjustable rear upper arms to set your pinion angle.
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OK, cool. I got that lift thinking that would be the case, that I could run the stock DS for long while. BUT that 2.5" lift really brought the thing up a lot (on the order of 6" at the front bumper with the tires - 32"s to 315/70's). I have not measured the "official way" that you have posted, though I think I will tonight. ....now I have to go find that official measure pionts, and refresh my memory... LOL... Found it!
 
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