Cam bolts and caster

1515art

1515art

TJ Enthusiast
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figured I should start a new thread on my cam blot castor. Replay to last night driving home on the freeway cam bolt slips again and my front lower control arms are loose and moving around, the jeep is almost uncontrollable and even had a couple seconds of dw luckily as soon as I let off the gas that stopped. Parked the jeep and in the morning bought a digital angle meter at osh for $20 that worked pretty good and checked the angles, castor was neg 2.7.

Had to cut out the bolt on the passengers side as the nut was frozen to the bolt. Put in the new bolts but the adjust tabs were a tiny bit deformed and I could only get roughly 4.7 to 5 positive on each side. My gauge wouldn’t sit flat on the back of the pinion, but the angle from the top of the diff at the rear looks to be true 90 and if so the angle measured around 8 positive if I’m measuring correctly. Took her out on the freeway and the handling felt as good as it ever has and didn’t notice any vibrations. Not sure if an alignment shop could set anything different and it actually feels better than when I paid 4wheel parts to do the work for me, so I might just see how it drives for a while. Am I missing anything?
 
I took another drive on the freeway this morning and now I’m thinking just a little more castor would be better as Jerry recommended. With the cam bolts maxed out is the next best option adjustable lower front control arms? Should I be changing anything else at this point, or stick with the adjustable arms and fine tune with the cam bolts? Also pinion angle is determined by the bracket location for control arms on the front axle, am I correct in understanding that I can’t change this angle in relation to the castor as this is fixed?
 
The cam bolts aren't going to give you much adjustability. You really need adjustable control arms to dial in caster. They should not be slipping if torqued properly.
 
Thanks Rob, I think the arm slipped because after rattling around loose the old cam bolt was damaged, the new bolts are seated tight in the bracket and flat.
 
The more I read the more I question what I think I know, but with the tools and protractor on hand measurements for my pinion to driveshaft difference is around 2 - 2.5 deg about where I’ve read is safe and the castor is roughly 5 deg any changes to castor will affect pinion angle and pinion is King so I may not go for more there. The front axle is favoring the left at 1/2 to 1” dog track and toe is still unchecked, need to do those also. I think I need to get back and recheck all deminisions as it relates to the suspension and steering. There is a dropped pitman arm I think and the arm looks parallel to the track bar. I also have adjustable upper control arms on the front axle, but am not sure exactly how adjusting them affects geometry different than adjusting the lowers other than in the other direction and in tandem with adjustable lowers would increase adjustments exponentially in any direction within limits?
 
Checked the toe, thank you Jerry and everyone for the info on how to do it. Checked and there wasn’t any toe front and back were dead even. I gave it a 1/8” more in back and double checked everything 4 or 5 times until I was satisfied everything was close enough. Test drive on the freeway was good and there were no vibrations that I noticed and not really any wandering. The drive was smooth enough that I hit 80 without intending to go that fast, but I’m not sure if the track bar might be a bit preloaded and thought I’d just double check if I’m understanding this like I need to before wrenching on it.

The jeep drove pretty good, I did notice doing measurements that the front axle is 1” farther to the drivers side and suspect the track bar is out of adjustment and/or preloaded. Guessing because there was a little bit of a dead zone possibly, could also be tiny bit of bump steer at the higher freeway speed. The steering issue is minor and I could easily live with it, I’ve driven lots of old cars and fire trucks back in the days so the tj handling is no big deal, however I’m trying to understand this as best I can and want my rig safe and fun to drive. If I’m reading correctly I can unbolt my adjustable front track bar at the top where it adjusts, give the jeep some good shakes to see where it settles naturally, re check to see if the front axle lines up with the fenders? If so adjust the track bar, if not well I’m gonna need to read some more cause I’m not there yet, lol.

Also some pictures of the pitman from different angles, wondering if this setup is ok or would/should I change something?
Thank again for any and all help, clark

8EA77A5A-33B0-4A1A-9056-1CF0FD6DE9E6.jpeg


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You have a dropped Pitman arm installed which is causing bump steer. Bump steer is where the steering is 'bumped' left/right when you drive over bumps/dips on the road.

Replace it with the OE factory Pitman arm and you'll be good to go. You'll just need to slightly re-center the steering wheel after installing the OE Pitman arm.

And yes you have the right idea on how to adjust your track bar's length. :)
 
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Rob5589 said:
Looks like you have adjustable control arms, uppers at least, hard to see the lowers.
Click to expand...
Ya the uppers are adjustable I’m assuming they are correctly adjusted the axels look centered front to back. Is there anything to gain squeezing fractions out of the wheel base, although might need to change the lowers to adjustable also.
 
Why did this discussion stop, and what did you end up doing? With adjustable front uppers, you don't need the cam bolts and are better off without them. For the slipping reason you already experienced, basically. Make your caster adjustments with the upper adjustables. Search on "cam bolt eliminator kit" and go from there.
 
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dougrz said:
Why did this discussion stop, and what did you end up doing? With adjustable front uppers, you don't need the cam bolts and are better off without them. For the slipping reason you already experienced, basically. Make your caster adjustments with the upper adjustables. Search on "cam bolt eliminator kit" and go from there.
Click to expand...
Hi dougrz, thanks for the tip on the cam bolt eliminators I’ll pick up a set. I’m also looking at some lower adjustable control arms. So far the cam bolts have held fine I probably didn’t have one of them seated completely flat last time I toqured them down. The Jeep drives pretty good now, but I’m thinking a small under 2k camping trailer is someday in my future and then I’ll need to eliminate wandering as much as I can and will switch to the adjustable lowers and maybe get a little more castor.

I’ve got a rubicon super flex lift now, but was wondering if I could swap in these Steinjager’s for the front lower control arms if these are any good they look easy to do small adjustments with?
A0AF9455-B756-4625-B120-F154270F32AB.jpeg
 
I also changed the pitman arm to OEM and that made a big difference in drivability, hardly any wandering except when the road is really bad and the bump steer is gone.
 
1515art said:
Hi dougrz, thanks for the tip on the cam bolt eliminators I’ll pick up a set. I’m also looking at some lower adjustable control arms. So far the cam bolts have held fine I probably didn’t have one of them seated completely flat last time I toqured them down. The Jeep drives pretty good now, but I’m thinking a small under 2k camping trailer is someday in my future and then I’ll need to eliminate wandering as much as I can and will switch to the adjustable lowers and maybe get a little more castor.

I’ve got a rubicon super flex lift now, but was wondering if I could swap in these Steinjager’s for the front lower control arms if these are any good they look easy to do small adjustments with?View attachment 73973
Click to expand...
Do not use arms with plain poly bushings. They will stress the mounting brackets. Since you have the RE superflex kit I would not go through the effort of changing out arms. You have adjustable uppers so take advantage of them. Set the lower cams to 0 and then use the uppers to set your caster as close as possible and use the cams for fine tuning after that. When the clevite and cartridge joint wear out on the lower you can push in Synergy DDBs as an option.
 
1515art said:
Hi dougrz, thanks for the tip on the cam bolt eliminators I’ll pick up a set.
Click to expand...

Did you ever get around to putting these in? I found some super beefy washers at my local Ace Hardware that worked well. With commensurate bolts to fit the bushings of the arms, was quite a bit less expensive than the package deal eliminator kits.
 
Hey dougrz, I haven’t had to as everything has stayed in place the old cam bolts have not moved and I was able to eliminate all my wandering issues correcting two small things. The upper inside track bar mount had the upper bolt loose didn’t really look like it would allow much play however tightening that bolt helped also my toe adjustment was excessive and fixing those things solved all my issues the Jeep drives great now.
 
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