D35 TTB beam angle

[scotts90ranger]

I think I'm going to be finally making my extended radius arms in the near future, are the front faces of the beams supposed to be vertical? I know my junk right now is fully out of spec so while I'm making stuff I want to get it back to correct... I'm tired of the alignment going out of wack every time I do anything...

 

[franklin2]

Frontend geometry is very complex. I think the best thing you can do is set it up so the bushings are not binding at ride height. Which would be the center pivot and the radius arm bushings. You will have to depend on the upper balljoint eccentric for the alignment. Yes, you will have to take it in and get it aligned again.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Heh, it's never been to an alignment shop... The current setup is where the upper balljoint is just not binding giving me the maximum amount of caster available with the camber reasonable... tire wear is where you would expect for the mileage, not perfect but reasonable.

I'm pretty sure the axle beams are supposed to be close to square but trying to confirm, they currently have quite the angle which is not easy on the upper balljoint which is why the alignment wanders a lot...

 

[gaz]

@scotts90ranger
Would pictures of extended radius arms installed help?

 

[SenorNoob]

I've read that somewhere.. Wish I could find a link for ya. But the idea was that yes the top of the beam should be level at ride height.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Yeah, in almost 25 years of being here I could have swore I read it at least twice .

I'm up for pictures of extended arms installed. My plan is to do the normal 2" square tube on the inside of the stock arm, I cut up a set of arms 10 years ago to do it but never got further than that... I'm getting more fender rubbing and the radius arm bushings are now mostly missing so it's time

 

[scotts90ranger]

Thinking about this I wanted to get the parts in one place so I went to retrieve them... so far I've looked for about an hour and only found the rear stud parts, I can't find the bigger pieces for some reason? I'm sure I put them somewhere safe... I'm pretty confident I put them in the garage but that still leaves several spots to hide...

 

[sgtsandman]

That happens every time one puts stuff where they won't lose it. Then the stuff isn't found until after you already bought a replcement...

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I want to say that the two sets of extended arms I’ve made so far, getting the vehicle perfectly level and setting things exact wasn‘t really possible. So I got everything as close as possible and gave it the good ol eyecrometer plus a couple measurements off the frame to get everything setting about the same on both sides. So far that’s been good enough. Really need my garage up so I have a flat place to do stuff like this.

 

[Mechrick]

On ttb I don't go for 'maximum caster'. Death wobble isn't really an issue with this front end. On half tons with wide tires I'll set them up with 1.5 to 2 degrees. Camber and toe should be as close to zero as you can get, but on a fresh build the suspension will settle over time and need re-tweaking.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Yeah, roughly what I did, I wasn't going fancy or measuring anything when I did it, it's just worked and drove good so stayed with it... my beam angles are pretty bad now with the 2" drop the lift kits come with for the radius arms...

 

[BlackBII]

It's been years, but when I built my arms I set the front face of the beams at 1-2 degrees to get a total caster of about 6 degrees, as the ball joint locations have some caster built in already. Return to center on my truck is fine.

 

[901wd#2]

I used two pair of arms and 4ft of DOM. Left the 1 set complete, slid the Dom over the stud drilled for plug weld. Cut the other set of arms up for the stud to go in the end of the dom. And the body of the arm to plate the extended arm.

for the mount at the frame I just hacked up the original mount to fit. Was not ideal. As droop was easy but bound the bushing during uptravel.

 

[4x4junkie]

On mine I set the beams to be level (face vertical, square with the ground). IIRC, caster angle was around 5° with the bushing set for 0° of correction. Tracks good with good return-to-center.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Perfect, thanks guys! I'm still on the search for my cut off radius arms