thinking of rotating Knuckles

[perp]

Looking for some opinions here. I have finished the rear suspension and i am moving on to the front. I have 52" long 4" lift springs i am putting on the front of my 77k5. (8" net lift). D60 up front. I am wondering at what angle of shimming do you all think rotating the knuckles becomes neccesary? This truck will only see pavement if i get lost or need to shoot from one trail to the next. i know a lot of axle shim will make it handle like sh!t on road, but will this be a big deal off road only? I am not worried about retun to center as Hydro is comming soon and likely won't have good return to center (if any) anyhow. also i have an ORD doubler, so front drive line is fairly long.
Thoughts, comments, anything?

Also if i need to rotate the thing i am planning on doing it myself, why pay someone else to have fun with my junk, right!?

 

[clarkjw24]

I've thought about this too but I think I'm going to lower the front spring hangers to correct the pinion angle. That way if I have to swap front axles for what ever reason any stock axle will work.

 

[perp]

lots of smart guys here, so why only one opinion in 3 days?

 

[shane74]

Ok, just so I'm not confused here, your post title is talking about rotating the knuckles, but your post is talking about the whole axle.

Do some research before you do it and do it on more than on board/site. I don't like to rotate anything more than 6 degrees as you run the risk of your pinion seal and bearing running dry. Granted, it's not too big of a deal on a trail only rig, but any DD will eat up pinion seals and bearings. Just my $0.02.

 

[perp]

I want to cut the weld for the inner "C"s and rotate them around the axle tubes to compensate for shimming the Entire axle tube up for better drive line alignment. did lots of searching here (no where else yet) and came up with a few threads but they were very old and who knows, maybe since then some more people have tried it or used different solutions to the same problem. asking questions is part of researching.
I thought about the pinion bearring and was contemplating overfilling the diff to help. as long as the vent tube is long enough (read high enough) then i think this won't hurt anything

 

[ntsqd]

I've thought about this too but I think I'm going to lower the front spring hangers to correct the pinion angle. That way if I have to swap front axles for what ever reason any stock axle will work.

Need to be carefull of how that changes the roll steer.

I think rotating the C's to get both good Castor and proper pinion angle is the best way to go. The only issue is the fill level for the diff. You will need to re-think that.

 

[perp]

what will happen if it is overfilled? foaming, overheating, leaking seals???

 

[Desert Rat]

I'm in a similar boat. My D60 is at a horrible angle. I have 6 inch TC springs up front with the ORD rear shackles. I was considering rotating the C's and re-welding them. But, if you rotate the diff too far, yes you then could have lubricating problems. After a conversation with Jesse at High Angle Driveline, I decided to just leave it as is. We are going to put a 1410 yoke on the D60 and I'll run a 1350 CV out of the TC. My rig will see a lot of highway driving until I get to the desert for my offroading. I don't want problems on the highway. Then, when I get off road, you have to look at the speeds you will be locking up the front at. Chances are your front won't be locked up at anything more than 20 mph or less. Jesse says at those low speeds, the angle should not be a problem. Usually you don't get driveline vibration until you get your speeds up a lot higher. At low speeds, the angle won't make that much of a difference. So, unless you have full time 4wd and the front is going to be going all the time, no big deal. As a result, I am not going to mess with shims or cutting and rotating. Now, on the rear Corp14ff, I had to cut the spring perches off, rotate the diff, and then re-weld the perches back on to avoid putting too large shims in to get my rear at the proper angle.

 

[unclematty]

when I built my axles I had both axles(F&R) front had the knuckles cut off and welded them back on with them rotated exactly 15 degrees, the back I did the same thing I cut off the spindles and welded them back on turned 15 degrees. this is for my 11 inches of lift it works great and no funny vibes and steering works great!

 

[perp]

How many inches of lift (suspension) did this truck have and also kinda curious as to why you cut the rear spindles and rotated instead of just the perches, seems like that would have been easier but ??