Posted by Marty [50.68.51.62] on Saturday, March 29, 2014 at 13:38:48 :
In Reply to: Caster Angle posted by Clark [24.20.54.56] on Saturday, March 29, 2014 at 13:09:04 :
I spent a lot of time on my last First Gen playing with Caster. Keep in mind, all Dodges are basically the same right up until 94 when they went to coil springs.
First Gens...I'm guessing the biggest issue with them is the weight of the Cummins sags the springs & as they sag it changes the caster towards the negative. Every First Gen I've driven steers like crap. They either have the death wobble or you're just constantly adjusting the steering to maintain a straight line & since everything in mine was new...I was going to get to the bottom of it.
So a friend has an alignment machine & we put her on. One wheel was at -.5 & the RH was at +.75. The book said 1.0-2.0 was acceptable but as you know...there's no adjustment.
After discussing it with numerous experts, we decided 3.0-4.0 is more what's ideal for these trucks & so I shimmed mine to 3.0.
The absolute best way to do it would be to remove your front axle & mill the pads on a milling machine but for obvious reasons, I wasn't going to do that for a trial run...not to mention that I bought a set of Skyjacker front lift springs for the same truck & they come with shims bolted to the spring pack & not only that but if you install them the way they suggest, you'll end up with -3.0 caster!
Anyway...it was like driving a new truck at +3.0. I could drive down the freeway with no hands & it steered perfect.
It's the first thing I'd alter on any leaf spring suspension in the future...it's the best modification I've ever done on one of these trucks.
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