Homebrew caster plates? (1 Viewer)

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I am in the process of doing my ome J lift and wondered if there were any other option besides Slee's caster plates?

Where can I buy the Landtank plates? are they any cheaper?

I've done a search and there were methods of doing them "HOME BREWED" caster plates with washers. Does anyone have any info on the washer method?

I'm on a budget right now, as many are:censor:, and love to do HOME BREW projects.

As for spacers for the front swaybars gonna use 3 in rectagular tubing (drilling two holes/cut to size). Drop brackets for the brake lines/rear sway bar/PPV/ ect (metal strip). As for shocks going to use Procomps. Telling U budget lift.:cheers:
 
The original home brew caster plate is a large steel washer about 3/16 thick. Drill a new hole in the front part of the axle housing bracket about inch (25 mm) below the original front hole 185 mm C-C from the back hole. Place washer on bolt and reinsert into new hole and arm, add another washer and tighten. Then weld the washers to the existing bracket. This corrects for about 4 inches of actual lift. Cheap too.
 
I really don't see Pin Heads washer trick compensating for 4" of lift. At best maybe 2.5".

To keep the bolt holes with in the frame work of the bracket you need to move both the front and the rear to correct for 4".
 
The washer mod can be done on both ends of the bracket and can get as much correction as any other bracket. When the stock arms hit the tie rod, that is all you can do, it is achievable with the washer mod.
 
I'm using Landtanks plates on 4" of lift. IMO it's the best solution, even if it is the most $$ of those 3 options.
 
The washer mod can be done on both ends of the bracket and can get as much correction as any other bracket. When the stock arms hit the tie rod, that is all you can do, it is achievable with the washer mod.

pretty much, however I cheated on my GENII plates. I rotated the axle and simultaneously dropped the arm to eliminate the tie rod contact issue.

Can it be duplicated with the washer method? I'm sure it can, but knowing what needs to be done, I'm not sure I could complete that task with out some sort of jig.

To the OP, the issue with this much correction is that the possibility of drive line vibrations is very high with the stock drive shaft. So the use of a DC shaft becomes a possibility and the front pinion angle is critical for those to run smooth. This adds a certain degree of accuracy to what ever method you choose. Hence the repeatability of a plate system works well.
 
So landtank (i'm not in anyway bashing on your product in anyway and just read nothing but good things about all the Caster plate manufactures. I know from what I read in the Searches that your product, as well as Slee's are the only ones available to correct the caster properly besides new control arms and the drop bracket method, which to me might get in the way when 4 wheeling IMHO) with that said.....

Are trying to say that the Caster plates achieve more pinpoint accuracy, due to the same bolt location/position on the axle/control arms from identical plates? Even pinpoint measurement cannot be achieved from a standard "ruler", but a jig is needed to accurately pinpoint the bolt holes in their propper location?

And if the bolts are even "a hair off" it will produce vibration on the driveshaft?

Well if that is the case then I guess spending a little more on the caster plates wouldn't be such a bad idea.... since this is my DD......

Yet a .10 washer compared to $150 (shipped) plate is very tempting.

Also Landtank... Where can I buy your product? Are they only available from FRANKY'S off Road? Or do you sell them personally. I read in some other post that you have different degree plates that you were working on. Are there only 1 style (7*) or are there others? Also what are the differences between yours and slee's?
 
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Does anyone have a "washer method" link that they can provide to shine some light on this method.

I would still like to see "how it's done" if possible.

Maybe how to set the control arms.....
Or where/how to position the axle.....
Where to drill the Hole.....
What size drill bit was used, ect

CHEERS!

not to veer off the subject...

But I bought a $8.00 CDL switch of a 96 Paseo
Going to buy some sliders and modify them from Marlin for $150.00 (68inch)
anyone else on a budget? Who said that FJ80's were supposed to be expensive.

All I need is to find a cheap rear bumper if anyone knows of one that is under $500.00
 
I really don't see Pin Heads washer trick compensating for 4" of lift. At best maybe 2.5".

Lowering the mounting hole by 25 mm will rotate the axle by 7.76 degrees. This is about the same amount that lifting the suspension by 4 to 4.5 inches rotates it. It is a simple trigonometry calculation: inverse sine(25/185) = 7.76. This is close to the maximum that you can rotate the axle by this method without having a problem with the drag link hitting the control arm.

YMMV
 
Are trying to say that the Caster plates achieve more pinpoint accuracy, due to the same bolt location/position on the axle/control arms from identical plates? Even pinpoint measurement cannot be achieved from a standard "ruler", but a jig is needed to accurately pinpoint the bolt holes in their propper location?

And if the bolts are even "a hair off" it will produce vibration on the driveshaft?

Well if that is the case then I guess spending a little more on the caster plates wouldn't be such a bad idea.... since this is my DD......

Yet a .10 washer compared to $150 (shipped) plate is very tempting.

Also Landtank... Where can I buy your product? Are they only available from FRANKY'S off Road? Or do you sell them personally. I read in some other post that you have different degree plates that you were working on. Are there only 1 style (7*) or are there others? Also what are the differences between yours and slee's?

My comments where about the limitations of correcting caster as far as the tie rod contacting the front arms. When only moving the front bolt and using the rear bolt as a hinge than either the washer method or a similar plate method has the same limitation. But by moving both the front and rear holes allows you to avoid that contact limitation.

Now to locate those new positions takes a certain amount of forethought and accuracy to repeat it on all 4 sides of the brackets.

At that amount of correction you end up usually needing to run a front DC shaft to control vibrations. The requirements for that is a pinion angle of 0* +/- 1*. So it's not a pin point accurate thing but it is a rather tight tolerance.

I drew up the front axle, front arms and frame mounts to work out the locations of these new holes. Anyone with that ability could do the same and then transpose those positions to the brackets and do the washer method and get the same results as I do. As you have already posted, I rotate the axle housing 7* which is the hardest part to figure out in this equation.

You can PM me about plates if you like.
 
Lowering the mounting hole by 25 mm will rotate the axle by 7.76 degrees. This is about the same amount that lifting the suspension by 4 to 4.5 inches rotates it. It is a simple trigonometry calculation: inverse sine(25/185) = 7.76. This is close to the maximum that you can rotate the axle by this method without having a problem with the drag link hitting the control arm.

YMMV

While this might give you 7.76* of angle difference between the axle and the arms it doesn't transpose that way to the vehicle.

Imagine the front arms are fixed in space. Now you rotate the front of the axle as you describe by relocating the hole 1". This would actually lift the tires off the ground. Now if you were to free the arms and allow the tires to touch the ground by lowering the axle that movement would negate some of the effects of your change.

So while you are positively effecting caster, some of what you are doing is lost do to the fact that the arms are moving as well.

The only way to get a 1:1 relationship of axle/arm to axle/rotation is to rotate the axle on it's center so the arms remain in the same position which brings us back to relocating both the front and rear holes in the bracket.

As far as the 1" being the most you can do to avoid tie rod contact that might be true I don't know.
 
change the complete arm with longer 1s so the diff sits in org spot then the springs wont hit the bump stop
 
I always had the impression that the caster plates only needed 1 hole to be drilled to be installed. And that was the front one.

So another hole is needed for the rear mount also?
 
You only need relocate the front hole. The hard part is drilling the passenger side holes, as the differential and knuckle is in the way. It is easier to drill if you remove the knuckle. Slee plates are designed so that you just cut off the bottom part of the original mounting bracket, so you don't have to drill a new hole.
 
I always had the impression that the caster plates only needed 1 hole to be drilled to be installed. And that was the front one.

So another hole is needed for the rear mount also?

I think Landtank's require two.

from a simplicity standpoint, Slee's is tops.
From an ingenuity and and effectiveness standpoint, LandTank's is tops.
 
Howdy! Being new to the 80 series, I am trying to understand all this change. So the caster plates lower the pinion flange allowing re-use of the original drive shaft by putting the pinions shaft and front output shaft in the same horizontal plane? Is there a similar mod to reverse it and raise the pinion flange, making the lower ujoint straight and using a DC at the transfer case end? John
 

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