Castor plates advice (1 Viewer)

[wrxFTWdey]

Hey everyone. Looking for some advice.

I just got some castor plates from metal tech.
I just pulled out the driver radius arm, turns out the previous owner already installed castor bushings. Turns out they come with the icon lift kit.
Now honestly I don’t know if I should go ahead and install the plates anyway. I have my angle grinder on standby lol.
The bushings are 4.6 degree castor correction. Which in theory should be returning the castor back to spec with the 3 inch lift.
I think I read somewhere that the plates correct for around 7 degrees and they are designed for 4 inch lifts.

I’ve driven this vehicle for a year and a half as a daily, with plenty of highway time. I’m unhappy with the way it drives. I’m unable to get alignment specs due the current situation we are all in.

Seems like my options are:
Return/sell plates, keep things the way they are
Get oem bushings, install plates
Install plates with current bushings and see what happens.

What is the best course of action here?

 

[wrxFTWdey]

Photos of the arm and plates

 

[kuruzaa]

My 2" OME lift requires 5 degree correction. I'm going with ironman castors with stock bushings. Going to pair this with the Delta rear panhard bracket to hopefully bring this baby back to stockish handling.

 

[BarnFab]

Did u measure your caster before u pulled the arm off ? Where people go wrong with suspension is the look for a solution before they understand the issue.

Get a measurement of your caster currently and see if that is even your issue

 

[Rusty Marlin]

I'm with BarnFab, you should wait till you know exactly what you have.

 

[LINUS]

Measure your current setup, not just take the kit as gospel.

Those bushes look kinda ugly, so assuming you bought the right plates, I’d get new OE bushings.

As a word of encouragement, I hard-measured mine & rotated on the centerline of the axle, my 4” Slee lift handles like stock height, but it took alot of work.

 

[Swbkrn2003]

My 2" OME lift requires 5 degree correction. I'm going with ironman castors with stock bushings. Going to pair this with the Delta rear panhard bracket to hopefully bring this baby back to stockish handling.

The Delays Bracket was a winner for my 5 inch lift.

 

[Swbkrn2003]

The Delays Bracket was a winner for my 5 inch lift.

Delta Bracket! Aughh auto correct

 

[Squeegee]

I’m running 3” in the front and one of the precious owners put ome caster bushings in and then the next one put on dobinsons caster plates. It feels like way to much caster. The steering a heavy and slow speeds but it’s very drivable. I’m planning on taking the caster bushings out and just leaving the plates. And when the front flexes the tie rod knocks against the radius arms.

 

[LINUS]

I hesitated initally, but once again I’m going to plug @landtank - his plates are what I’m on prior to @NLXTACY becoming the vendor.

Rick helped me get my 80 dead-bang perfectly back to neutral like i was on stock height ride.

Not just the front, but the rear too. It took work and welding on my part as Rick wasn’t vendoring anything, but end result I’ll Pepsi-Challenge any 4” lift 80 - Wit’s End stuff is ‘final answer’ -level goodness.

I own Icon coilovers & arms for the Tundra, but 80 world is best served by Joey/Rick.

 

[crikeymike]

My 2" OME lift requires 5 degree correction. I'm going with ironman castors with stock bushings. Going to pair this with the Delta rear panhard bracket to hopefully bring this baby back to stockish handling.

That doesn't sound right. Is that what you measured after adding the OME lift, that you needed to add 5* to get it to the proper caster setting?

 

[wrxFTWdey]

So let me start off that this quarantine must be making me dumber. I read the advice you guys all put out, and yet I decided to go full retard and put the plates on anyway. Coors light in hand, I said **** it, and sent it.

She drives great, EXCEPT the tie rod is rubbing/grinding on the radius arms. Even with the wheels straight and on a level surface they are touching.

Going to FireStone to get an alignment reading tomorrow, and then I will decide what needs to be done. I'm sure I'll make the wrong decision again.

After doing a ton of reading, my options seem to be:

1. Leave current plates and CC bushings, grind down the radius arms, until they don't rub
2. Leave current plates, swap bushings to OEM, and hope that creates the clearance needed.
3. Remove plates, install oem bushings, buy lanktank 2.5 inch plates.
4. remove the plates and put the arms with current icon bushings back on. This step would require building custom plates or welding "weld washers" to support the bolt holes and the axle housing radius arm mounts that I just grinded down IOT fit the plates.
5. Flip the 2nd(rear), axle side bushing upside down and see if that fixes my clearance issue. Flipping the rear bushing would change the angle of the arm and with both bushings offset (higher) it should lower the arm and may possibly give me the clearance I need.

What I decide to do will be totally based on your recommendations and the castor reading tomorrow. Should have just been patient and waited until I got the reading first. If poor judgement is a symptom of coronavirus then I definitely have it! or maybe it was the silver bullet whispering in my ear.

 

[tacocat]

So let me start off that this quarantine must be making me dumber. I read the advice you guys all put out, and yet I decided to go full retard and put the plates on anyway. Coors light in hand, I said **** it, and sent it.

She drives great, EXCEPT the tie rod is rubbing/grinding on the radius arms. Even with the wheels straight and on a level surface they are touching.

Going to FireStone to get an alignment reading tomorrow, and then I will decide what needs to be done. I'm sure I'll make the wrong decision again.

After doing a ton of reading, my options seem to be:

1. Leave current plates and CC bushings, grind down the radius arms, until they don't rub
2. Leave current plates, swap bushings to OEM, and hope that creates the clearance needed.
3. Remove plates, install oem bushings, buy lanktank 2.5 inch plates.
4. remove the plates and put the arms with current icon bushings back on. This step would require building custom plates or welding "weld washers" to support the bolt holes and the axle housing radius arm mounts that I just grinded down IOT fit the plates.
5. Flip the 2nd(rear), axle side bushing upside down and see if that fixes my clearance issue. Flipping the rear bushing would change the angle of the arm and with both bushings offset (higher) it should lower the arm and may possibly give me the clearance I need.

What I decide to do will be totally based on your recommendations and the castor reading tomorrow. Should have just been patient and waited until I got the reading first. If poor judgement is a symptom of coronavirus then I definitely have it! or maybe it was the silver bullet whispering in my ear.

Why you do this to me, Dimi

 

[Squeegee]

So let me start off that this quarantine must be making me dumber. I read the advice you guys all put out, and yet I decided to go full retard and put the plates on anyway. Coors light in hand, I said **** it, and sent it.

She drives great, EXCEPT the tie rod is rubbing/grinding on the radius arms. Even with the wheels straight and on a level surface they are touching.

Going to FireStone to get an alignment reading tomorrow, and then I will decide what needs to be done. I'm sure I'll make the wrong decision again.

After doing a ton of reading, my options seem to be:

1. Leave current plates and CC bushings, grind down the radius arms, until they don't rub
2. Leave current plates, swap bushings to OEM, and hope that creates the clearance needed.
3. Remove plates, install oem bushings, buy lanktank 2.5 inch plates.
4. remove the plates and put the arms with current icon bushings back on. This step would require building custom plates or welding "weld washers" to support the bolt holes and the axle housing radius arm mounts that I just grinded down IOT fit the plates.
5. Flip the 2nd(rear), axle side bushing upside down and see if that fixes my clearance issue. Flipping the rear bushing would change the angle of the arm and with both bushings offset (higher) it should lower the arm and may possibly give me the clearance I need.

What I decide to do will be totally based on your recommendations and the castor reading tomorrow. Should have just been patient and waited until I got the reading first. If poor judgement is a symptom of coronavirus then I definitely have it! or maybe it was the silver bullet whispering in my ear.

Sounds like you got more caster then me. With bushings and plates my tie rod end still has like 1/2” of clearance. I’d just put normal bushings in, caster correction ones don’t flex at all.

 

[wrxFTWdey]

Sounds like you got more caster then me. With bushings and plates my tie rod end still has like 1/2” of clearance. I’d just put normal bushings in, caster correction ones don’t flex at all.

Yeah theres no clearance at all, i checked again today and the tie rod has some grind marks on it now. It rubs on the road, can't imagine how bad it is on the trail. Just waiting on my castor numbers and then I will likely just replace with oem bushings.

 

[LINUS]

Sounds like your caster is pivoting on your rear radius arm axle bolt rather than on the axle centerline - and you have way the heck too much.

You talk about grinding the arm, but I’d bet as cocked as tou have the axle that your bumpstop cups are going to bind on the inner surface of the spring coils,

Go find a spot & flex the front axle - see if you bind/rub coils on that metal cup the bumpstop rides in.

Don’t waste money getting any service work until you flex the axle - and really, grinding the arm to clearance for anything isn’t a real long-term solution.

More like stitching a wound that’s still infected at best.

 

[Heckraiser]

I'm late to the party, but the first thing I was going to say is "whatever you do, don't install the plates on top of your current bushings." Lol. And definitely don't grind up your radius arms to accommodate this arrangement because those bushings should come out.

If I had caught this thread before you actually did anything I would have said wait until it's safe to go to the alignment shop then install OEM bushings and measure your real caster figure, then get either the 2.5 or 4 landtank plates, whichever corrects you back to where you need to be.

Kudos for the redneck ambition though.

 

[crikeymike]

I'm late to the party, but the first thing I was going to say is "whatever you do, don't install the plates on top of your current bushings." Lol. And definitely don't grind up your radius arms to accommodate this arrangement because those bushings should come out.

If I had caught this thread before you actually did anything I would have said wait until it's safe to go to the alignment shop then install OEM bushings and measure your real caster figure, then get either the 2.5 or 4 landtank plates, whichever corrects you back to where you need to be.

Kudos for the redneck ambition though.

Someone else had already mentioned about the contact problem with too much caster, but he didn't understand that part I guess, and still went ahead and doubled up on caster.

 

[wrxFTWdey]

Someone else had already mentioned about the contact problem with too much caster, but he didn't understand that part I guess, and still went ahead and doubled up on caster.

To be fair, the post regarding having too much caster and clearance issues was posted the day after I had already went ahead with the install.

 

[wrxFTWdey]

Here are my alignment numbers as of today.
Alignment check was free so that’s pretty cool

Definitely too much castor with the plates and the bushings.

My plan now, is to flip the 2nd bushing in each arm, upside down/ turn 180 degrees. Maybe that will give me enough clearance and reduce the castor a bit. Considering that the icon bushings are rated for 4.6 degrees of correction which is a ton of correction for bushings.
At this point it all about trial and error really.
If flipping the bushing does not work, I will replace the bushings with stock ones.
IF that still doesn’t fix my clearance issue then I will remove the metal techs and get some Land tank 2.5 plates.
If I still have clearance issues after all that, I’ll just drive the 80 into a swamp and leave it for a gator habitat.