would a lift change camber? my truck has 1.5 on the left and 0.0 on the right. should be under .50 of a degree. it sounds as if the left knuckle or diff is bent?? anyone came accross this?

 

yes a lift can change the camber.

 

well I am a worry wart, I have a 4.5 lift with leaf packs and a 3/4 shackle in rear and a 3/4 spring spacer. last time when I had the alighment done camber was in spec, now is more than 3/4 of a degree off. so what am I going to have to change if I decide to go with a 6.5 coil spring in the front end? any ideas is apprectiated.

 

I don't see how a lift could possibly change camber on a solid axle vehicle. There is no way to adjust camber on an XJ, or any solid axle vehicle for that matter. Well unless you got adjustable ball joints. You might have something a little tweaked if your camber is off, and going up to 6.5" won't have any affect on your camber. Now your caster angle on the other hand, that will be pretty off at 6.5" of lift, you'll need some new control arms for sure. If you don't already have an adjustable trackbar you'll need one of those too. Brakelines are probably about at their limits right now at 4.5" so some extended ones would be in order. And you may also find that an SYE/rear driveshaft will be needed as well to avoid vibes. Lifting the XJ very tall like 6.5" just goes way outside the factory suspensions geometry and it can get a bit pricey to get everything back in line, no worries about camber here though, we're not talkin toyotas!

 

from what I understand the ball joints are pressed to have the proper camber. when you ad a lift, the axle angles can change and effect camber. usually not a big issue with wide tires used on off road.

 

This would be true if we were talking about an IFS (independant front suspension) vehicle in which case lifting would change the camber angle, just as lowering a IFS car changes the camber situation. Lifting a solid axle Jeep in no way changes the camber as the steering knuckle is fixed and solidly attatched to the axle. And lifting only pushes that axle further from the chassis. When aligning a Jeep front suspension the only things that can be adjusted are caster and toe, with camber being completely fixed, lifted or not.

 

well I have some options, I do have a new trac bar , it is for a 6 inch lift, also I do have a SYE. I am just fighting a brake pull to the right and also drifting to the right, and I think its from the camber being off? I dont see how my knuckle or front diff is bent?

 

That is a bit odd that you have that camber situation going on. I would think that either something has been tweaked, or the ball joints on that side are bad, allowing the knuckle to lean slightly. Have you wheeled it real hard since your last alignment? Maybe something got bent or damaged. Do you ever get any death wobble while driving? If so I wouldn't count the unit bearings out as possible culprits either.

 

no it cant change camber
it will change caster

if you have bad camber its a bad ball joint or bent yoke

you can get adjustable one to correct the problem

 

^ he speaks the truth. camber cannot change from a lift. caster will. but more positive camber ont he left will make it pull left, are you sure its not -1.5 on the left, then it will pull right. either way, check the ball joints real good, and offset ball joints can help. i've never had to install offset ball joints on a jeep though.

 

If your camber is off the front axle is bent, either the "C" is bent or the tube. You need to get an alignment measurment first, then you can correct it by pressing in an offset upper ball-joint. These come in .5* 1.0* and 1.5* incriments to correct the bend in the axle. You then select the correct ball-joint that goes with the measurement that you took earlier, if your at -1.0* you need the 1.0* ball-joint pressed in facing out (Between 7 to 9oclock position) I've done lots of these. You will finish with a front-end alignment and set the toe.

I have had a few that the tube is bent, and it is bent to the point that the shaft will not line back up with the splines in the spider gears because of the angle. At that point the housing is junk.

 

well the only adj upper ball joint I found was napa but it only goes to 1989?? mine is a 01. hope it works? I am at 1.4 negative on LF so I will put it in a 1.5 and see what happends I guess?? I just am floored on how it even got like that?

 

sorry I was wrong. its the caster it changes. for some reason I mixed them up in my head. although you can adjust the camber with shims behind the wheel hub your prolly better off finding out why it is out of whack. bad ball joint or bent axle tub or c ends.

 

the "C" is bent

are you talking about the yoke

 

so if the c knuckle is bent, what is a good front axle swap that I can do? should I go back to a D35?