Rear wheel misalignment issues

[ERV JR]

I was looking at the trooper today , getting ready to do some work when I noticed that I have a camber problem and toe out on the rear wheels, I thought it may be from the coils settling but i jacked it up and noticed it is still there but not as bad. I checked the trailing arms to look for cracks in the powdercoat to see id the arm bent but didnt see any.

Does anyone else have a neagitve cambe problem or toe out on the rear wheels ?

[rocmoc]

Yes, look at my album and you can see the neg camber. Mine/the early units had neg camber. Its not a problem, IMHO! Look at race cars/trucks and they have neg camber in dirt and black top.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[ERV JR]

Yes, look at my album and you can see the neg camber. Mine/the early units had neg camber. Its not a problem, IMHO! Look at race cars/trucks and they have neg camber in dirt and black top.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

That is usually due to sag, but when it lifts it goes positive

[rocmoc]

Not in the rear. The rear is trailing arms and does not have any effect on Camber. The front is A-arms and does change with sag/movement.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[ERV JR]

Not in the rear. The rear is trailing arms and does not have any effect on Camber. The front is A-arms and does change with sag/movement.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

Maybe Im crazy but looking at the bushings for the trailing arm they look like they arent mounted on the same plane , if so that would mean the camber changes. It may have have been my eyes playing tricks since they arent in line. but jacking it up seemed to change the camber also

[ksimpsy]

yes my trooper has the same thing going on I would like to heat the whole swing arm up and twist it back but i probably wont.

[rocmoc]

It doesn't hurt anything! If you have a 4 wheel independent suspension setup, the camber changes with the load/fuel/passengers/etc. in the vehicle. Not a big deal on the Trooper. You will not improve the performance if you mess with it. Tire wear is only an issue if you drive on hard surface all the time. I would only be concerned is it changes.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[ERV JR]

It doesn't hurt anything! If you have a 4 wheel independent suspension setup, the camber changes with the load/fuel/passengers/etc. in the vehicle. Not a big deal on the Trooper. You will not improve the performance if you mess with it. Tire wear is only an issue if you drive on hard surface all the time. I would only be concerned is it changes.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

you are correct about race cars setup like that, there is a race shop behinde our yard and today when i drove out they had the rear of a car out the door and it had negative camber.

I usually ride in hard pack dirt, or washes, I noticed that the tread is showing signs of wear a bit and it wasnt even. oh well

[Guest Lenny]

I'll be making a full report on the rear camber and toe out problem. Had it on mine. The riders at Logandale saw just how bad my rear misalignment was. I cut it, sliced it and diced it and found a number of problems that should be looked at. Will report shortly with fix and pics.

Lenny

[Guest Lenny]

While at Logandale for the 1st Trooper Jamboree, other riders noticed my rear wheel on the drivers side was towed out and leaning in at the top, negative camber, a fair amount. The right side was doing it also but not near as much. Before I get into the problem I want you to be aware of a few things. If the rear wheels are straignt forward, no tow, when the rear spindles are at the same height as the trailing arms pivot points, as the wheel compresses from that position torwards full bump, the wheel progressively tows in. This happenes because the trailing arms pivot points are not perpendicular to a line running down the center of the Trooper. At the same time and for the same reason, if the wheel starts out with no camber, it progressively takes on negative camber as it goes to full bump.

The Problem

The shank portion of the bolts going through the spindle housing mounting points and their respective tabs on the swing arm are too short. The threads of the bolts rest against the tabs. This allows the joint to shift not only working at the threads but the hole in the tab also. Ultimately, the threads flatten and the hole elongates. Once one side starts to work loose then the hole on the other side of the bolt but without the thread playing a part, does the same thing.

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This is also the case , too short of bolt shank at the trailing arms pivot points. I ended up with 1/4" side to side play when pushing the rear of the arm side to side. I could also wiggle the wheel from straigt forward to towed out probably 1/2" or more. I remember that when going fast down a trail I kept thinking I had a soft tire. It wondered just like it would do with a soft tire. After having everything apart, I noticed the spindle tabs on the swing arms were bent.

The next pic shows the alignment difference between the upper tabs which have been redone and the lower tabs wich are still torqued out of position. You'll also see that I went to much heavier tabs and longer bolts.

(A side note before I continue. The pivot points on the spindle housing do not pivot at all. It is just the way Joyner mounted it. This made me red faced as I looked at mine and saw the greese fittings I put on them. Dahhhhhh, If they don't move, they don't need greese fittings. Never gave it a second thought, just saw a pivot point and added a greese fitting. I shouldn't have to analyze it, just add the fitting, its a pivot point.)

I then began looking at the swing arm itself. It was twisted from the upward pressure of the wheel working against the down pressure of the Trooper itself. I bottomed it hard a couple of times while running woops fast. Still it shouldn't twist so easy. Looking its construction over, it was obvious that it wasn't designed properly. First off, it's nothing more then a channel. A channel can twist easily. It should be a closed sided box which is greatly stronger to torsion, sever times over stronger. They attempte to stabilize the twist potential but even did that wrong. They put a cross bar running lengthwise inside the structure. but instead of running it diagonially through the box frame from one corner to another corner, they ran it from the middle of one vertical bar to another vertical. The compressive forces from the torsion just bent the vertical bars out. In the following pic, the 2 left vertical bars should be parellel.

The next pic shows the 2 horz. bars at the end of the swing arm. The lower bar has been torqued which is seen in the jog it now takes.

This pic shows a cracked weld as a result. This is why the sheet metal should be continously welded.

To be continued on next post. Forum wouldn't allow more pics at once.

Lenny

[Guest Lenny]

Continued from first post.

The fix

All the tabs need to be thickened. I made mine real heavy but for riders that are less aggressive, at least weld some thick washers with a hole that closely fits the bolts and put in longer grade 5 or preferably grade 8 bolts. Now get the bolts tight. When their tight, then get them dam tight. If you break one, then you got it too dam tight. We don't want any movement at all between the inner sleeves of the pivot points and side tabs. So get it real tight. Be sure to oil the threads, this increases its drawup force buy double.

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The arms themselves need to have all the sheet metal continously welded and add sheet metal to the open side.

Also check the swing arms pivot sleeves to be sure that they align with each other and correct them if necessary as shown here.

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Be sure to check them for both up and down and front to rear alignment. If your putting good heavy tabs on the main frame and larger bolts, I used 3/4" bolts, for the swing arm like I did, you will also need to make sure the 4 holes all align with each other, Mine didn't. Use a straignt round bar smaller then the holes to evaluate their alignment. If their off, use a small dremmel grinder or cutter to cut the side of the hole so its center is aligned with the other centers. You can't just run a drill through unless you have a drill long enough to be in all holes at once and this still isn't as good. Once aligned then you can drill them all to a larger size. Make sure the bolts are in place when tacking the tab reinforcements in place.

My swing arms no longer has any play at all in them and they swing nice and smooth. I set it up so the wheels are straight forward and have 0 tow when at full droop. It will stay close to this on up to the axel being level with the swing arm pivots and above that point for 4 or 5 inches. I remachined everything but just changing the bolts, reinforcing the tabs, continously welding everything, adding sheet metal on the 4th side and getting bolts real tight should be fine for most.

Lenny

[ksimpsy]

Excellent work, I cant even think of a question that you didn't already answer.

Oh wait, on the swing arm pivots when you put a larger bolt in, did you just drill out the plastic bushings?

Kevin

[Guest Lenny]

Excellent work, I cant even think of a question that you didn't already answer.

Oh wait, on the swing arm pivots when you put a larger bolt in, did you just drill out the plastic bushings?

Kevin

The bushings are steel and yes i did drill them. In order to get a nice job I used a lathe but if they are clamped vertical and tight in a drill press, that should work fine. I wouldn't be confortable doing them using a vise and electric drill. I also had to replace 2 of the large bushings that the sleeves slide into as they had their flanges broken off. I machined down slightly larger bronze bushings. They were the closest size I could get that worked.

Lenny

[ksimpsy]

oh, steel makes more sense they just looked plastic to me. shows how much attention I pay to that area, it's behind me i guess.

[rocmoc]

Man you do NICE work!

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[4x4x454]

Thanks for the info and great job. Man I wish I lived next door to you. I will be checking mine it has the same problem.

[STIHLMAN]

Lenny, you are good! You build like the ALABAMA BOYS build.Strong ,Heavy? just needs more Horse Power.

[Guest Lenny]

Lenny, you are good! You build like the ALABAMA BOYS build.Strong ,Heavy? just needs more Horse Power.

It has to be pretty strong to handle the weight of this thing. I like to forget it for good once I fix it. Actually I probably haven't added more then 50 pounds total with all the things I have done like air compressor w/3 gal tank, high lift jack, cooler and double gas can rack on back. windsheild and general beefing up of weak spots along with other things. In some cases I've been able to reduce weight with changes I've made. I can go the same places rather I'm loaded down with pasenger, 2 dogs, 10 gal extra gas, cooler and lots of gear as I can empty. The only place weight seems to be a issue is in the sand dunes and then I strip it down to bear minimum. Horse power will be the last thing I address. I'm really much more interested in getting all the torque I can get so I don't have to rev so much to get the pulling power for doing tight hilly stuff. I don't need any more speed. If I were going to race, then I would have to start from scratch with a new frame and keep it light right from the get-go. First off I want to make the unit rock solid reliable so I can venture way back in with a very low chance of breakdown. For me its all about survival in a bad situation. When I'm riding alone, I like to stay conservative. If I have the security of other riders with me then I can get a little more wild.

Thanks for everybodys generous comments on my work. I'm really not that good. I've been doing this for over 50 years now and If I can't do a decent job by now, something is wrong with me. 50+ years has taught me that building extra strong is a lot better then building to the light side. It doesn't take that much longer nor does it add that much extra weight and it rarely ever breaks.

Lenny

[STIHLMAN]

Same here,just can not see why you can not get a manufactor to understand that if they built it like you and I would build it,THEY WOULD SELL MORE,alot more in most cases.

[Kinarfi]

merged Lenny's report with this thread at Lenny's request