I am putting a 73' chevy dana 44 under the front of my CJ. I was only going to shorten the long end by 4" and cut/respline the axle, welding the knuckle back on to match the un-modified passenger side. I got out the protractor to check the castor and it does not appear to have any castor or maybe 1 degree positive stock(these protractors are not very accurate). How will my Jeep handle if I do this? I really didn't want to have to go through the hassle of grinding off the short side welds and rotating that knuckle too. (The welds look beefy and I am using a chop saw to cut off the driver side then chop again to shorten ...Thanks for the info 66CJDean!)

I have read quite a few posts (to put it lightly) building up to this point. But does anyone run stock castor on Chevy axle? (I'm afraid I am going to botch the tube end if I grind it). I will have a total of 7" of lift.

I have read 7018 rod is good to use on the knuckle welds, how many amps do you think to get good penetration?

Thanks again. David

....sometimes I wish I had never heard about this site because now I am never going to finish this project this summer, my list of things to do keeps growing.....14 bolt, disc brakes, hi-steer, SOA, SR, and I have a vortec sitting under a tarp.

You could use shims to add castor to avoid having to mess with the short side, but it would change your pinion angle too. A more difficult option is to grind an angle into the spring pad.
You'll wish you had 4-6 degrees of castor if you leave it stock.

I thought Chevy d44's, at least my 76, have 6 degrees of caster stock.

My 78 Chevy 44 has 8.6* of caster, specs for the Chevy call for 8*.

I run a chevy 44 front axle that I narrowed 6 inches and used stock knuckles with no caster adjustments made and it does fine. You will have to run some kind of steering stabilizer to keep the shimmy down though. Chevy put one on from the factory for a reason.

Originally posted by cj7jeep
I thought Chevy d44's, at least my 76, have 6 degrees of caster stock.

I have not put the axle under the front of my Jeep yet, it is on jack stands. [Looking for some waggy springs possibly] I look at at the stock spring on the truck [73' Chevy] and they look pretty flat. I get the reading by placing a level on the spring perch [and making it level] then running a small pin thru the knuckle [flush with the front] and placing the protractor on the pin. Which shows 0 to 1 degree castor [well acutally 90 degrees, but you get what I mean]. Any ideas on a more acurate way to get the reading? I get the same reading by placing the protractor on the top of the "C". Should I put the knuckle back on and put the protractor on the flat steering arm mount? There is a conical spacer in the top knuckle, but if I took it out I think the reading would be negative, even worse.

Originally posted by oh well
I run a chevy 44 front axle that I narrowed 6 inches and used stock knuckles with no caster adjustments made and it does fine. You will have to run some kind of steering stabilizer to keep the shimmy down though. Chevy put one on from the factory for a reason.

What are you doing for axles? Did you just cut 1" off of the short side axle and leave it with shorter splines??? I thought about doing that because my 14 bolt rear is 2" narrower after finding some Cab and Chassis hubs with the disc brake conversion. [still haven't gone to the junkyard for the hubs]. So if I shorten the long side 5", and the short side 1", it would match the 14 bolt and it would be centered with a 27.5" spring perch width after moving the long side perch 5". The axle narrows right after the splines on the stock axles so it detered me from thinking of this.

I measured 4* castor on the chevy housing I have, with the spring pads level. I don't know what year it is but I don't think it has been modified. I would just try it the way it is & add shims if necessary.

I would just cut the long side. That will make it ~65" wide w/ 8 lug outers, right? That's about 3" wider than a C&C 14 bolt? I would be happy with that. Or, how wide is a normal 14 bolt?

If you just cut the 4", you can use the long shaft from a '80 - '84 Waggy. According to www.warn.com , they are 4.01" shorter then the Chevy. You can pobably get one from a Pick-N-Pull type place for half the cost of resplining.

I have a narrowed chevy 44 that I built for my jeep. If you make the spring perches level then there is only 1 degree of caster on it. Keep in mind chevys come stock with shackle reversal and that will net a few more degrees. I figure with my shackle reversal I have aproximately 6 degrees caster and thats the way I designed it to be. It doesn't matter what the reference from the perch is knuckle. It does matter what the caster is in relation the ground when the suspension is at rest with the full vehicle weight on it. I drove mine all the way from san luis obispo to the 'con last weekend and it drives great! Hope that helps!

Kevo

Originally posted by Ghetto Fab.
I have a narrowed chevy 44 that I built for my jeep. If you make the spring perches level then there is only 1 degree of caster on it. Keep in mind chevys come stock with shackle reversal and that will net a few more degrees. I figure with my shackle reversal I have aproximately 6 degrees caster and thats the way I designed it to be. It doesn't matter what the reference from the perch is knuckle. It does matter what the caster is in relation the ground when the suspension is at rest with the full vehicle weight on it. I drove mine all the way from san luis obispo to the 'con last weekend and it drives great! Hope that helps!

Kevo

I will take that as good advice. I plan on doing a Shackle Reversal, I kind of wanted to finish the axle first but will weld up the spring mounts first and hang it all. I guess I got it backwards [the order] because I had to bring the chop-saw from work. I was kind of worried about the pinion angle too, I will have to measure it again, it seemed to be tilted some stock [you can't easily move the passenger side easily because it is part of the cast housing]. Good to see a Jeeper from SLO. I'm a Cal-Poly Grad. How's the surf been this spring?

You really should set the axle under the Jeep and then measure your caster. Of course this would have to be done after the narrowing is complete. It is so rare that the spring pad area of the leaf springs is sitting perfectly level. Setting the axle on jackstands in the garage and getting the perches level is really a waste of time since it usually isn't what the real setup is like.

Also, what CJ-Jeeper said about using 80-91 Waggie long side shaft is true (I know Warn's chart only says 80-84, but 85-91 are the same as 80-84). It's exactly (well .01" is close enough to exactly) 4" shorter than the Chevy long side shaft. I'm going the same route that you're going with a C&C 14 bolt and '73 44 converted to eight lugs. Remember, most factory applications have the front axle 3-4" wider than the rear for tracking in a turn. My 44 front will be 65" and the rear will be 63".

Originally posted by cmegoup
You really should set the axle under the Jeep and then measure your caster. Of course this would have to be done after the narrowing is complete. It is so rare that the spring pad area of the leaf springs is sitting perfectly level. Setting the axle on jackstands in the garage and getting the perches level is really a waste of time since it usually isn't what the real setup is like.

Also, what CJ-Jeeper said about using 80-91 Waggie long side shaft is true (I know Warn's chart only says 80-84, but 85-91 are the same as 80-84). It's exactly (well .01" is close enough to exactly) 4" shorter than the Chevy long side shaft. I'm going the same route that you're going with a C&C 14 bolt and '73 44 converted to eight lugs. Remember, most factory applications have the front axle 3-4" wider than the rear for tracking in a turn. My 44 front will be 65" and the rear will be 63".

All good advice. You do need to see what the actual spring pad angle is going to be before these measurements mean anything.

For reference, heres one more:
spring pads level = pinion 8* up

quote:
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Originally posted by oh well
I run a chevy 44 front axle that I narrowed 6 inches and used stock knuckles with no caster adjustments made and it does fine. You will have to run some kind of steering stabilizer to keep the shimmy down though. Chevy put one on from the factory for a reason.
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What are you doing for axles? Did you just cut 1" off of the short side axle and leave it with shorter splines??? I thought about doing that because my 14 bolt rear is 2" narrower after finding some Cab and Chassis hubs with the disc brake conversion. [still haven't gone to the junkyard for the hubs]. So if I shorten the long side 5", and the short side 1", it would match the 14 bolt and it would be centered with a 27.5" spring perch width after moving the long side perch 5". The axle narrows right after the splines on the stock axles so it detered me from thinking of this

I cut the long side 6 inches and moved the pumpkin towards the center of the jeep by 1 inch. I had to add on the the spring perch in the diff and redrill the hole for the spring pin. I did all of this because I only wanted one size of custom axle shafts. I narrowed it 6 inches because I wanted to get close to the width of my rear axle. If I had it to do over again, I would only narrow 4 inches and buy wheel spacers for the back. I still wouldn't adjust the caster. Mine does fine with stock chevy knuckles.