Front drive shaft angle help

[redpony]

Need help What is going on ????? We have a 68 with Duff type lift kit. It was on the Bronco with this kit already installed. It is the kit that you add the lowereing arm brackets & plates to the frame. Re lowers the arms. I had taken the Bronco to a shop to have lower arm C bushing replaced. I was told that who ever installed the lift kit had over corrected. By adding the lowing arms and the bushing. ????? The drive shaft is now pointing down at the rear. This makes for very bad angle for drive shaft which does bolt in. also it is a longer then stock shaft for a bronco with 2 inch lift. Any help or ideas. Thank you

 

[bax]

Well it's a give and take situation. To get good pinion angle on a lifted bronco you have to give up castor angle. Without good castor angle you have a squally driving truck. With good castor angle you have bad pinion angle. So without doing some axle modifications you are forced to split the difference. Make any sense to you?

 

[langester]

Pics would help for sure. If you have a 2 inch lift and 7 degree bushings plus drop brackets on the radius arms I can see that being too much correction.

 

[Broncobowsher]

So it has drop radius arm brackets, offset bushings, and only a 2" lift.
Sounds like it once had a lot of lift and it was lowered back down a lot.

Since the caster angle is fixed by the rotation of the axle, and that also does the pinion angle, it is a balancing act. What's good for one is bad for the other. With the lowered Bronco the balance has shifted in favor of good caster.

So what to do to fix this? Well need to know where things stand now. What is the caster numbers? The U-joint operating angle? What bushings are in the wedges? As much as I am not a fan of drop radius arm brackets, going back to stock is usually very involved as they need to be in the right place. Unless done poorly, just leave the drop brackets in place. Then look at pulling a little bit of caster to get the driveshaft angle back in check.

How do you plan to use the 4WD? street queen, never sees 4WD? Don't worry about it. Plan on using it a lot, going long distances with at least the front hubs locked, need a good angle.

 

[Steve83]

Ford published the article in this caption about driveshaft modifications:

(phone app link)

 

[charlie6976]

What is the caster reading (numbers)? Probably way high. Change the 'C' bushing to get down to factory specs and your angle should be ok.
Sounds like maybe you have more 'changes' (added parts) than needed. Just look for interference on suspension travel.