Axle cut and turn angles

[scoutguy66]

I am in the middle of a cut and turn on the dana 44 out of my '79 terra. I was going off a thread from some forum from a long time ago and I seem to have lost the link. Does anyone know about how many degrees to turn the knuckles and the spring perches to get the right caster and driveline angle?
I think it's about 3*-5* on the caster and like 10*-12* on the pinion but I'm not sure. Please correct me if i'm wrong, any help would be appreciated.

[scoutnaround]

we turned mine 7 and set the pinoin at 10 works great

[scoutguy66]

Thank you. Now I have the confidence to proceed with the project.

[sab7896]

I rotated my knuckles 5*. I've never agreed w/ rotating the pinion. My thoughts have always been that the proper driveline efficiency is obtained by matching the pinion angle to the motor/trans angle. The motor angle doesn't change when you lift it so the pinion angle wouldn't change either. The shaft would be at a different angle but that's not the important thing. Just another view point. I'm basing my knowledge off of racecars not 4x4's so maybe someone has a good arguement for changing it for scouts.

[Allan E.]

I rotated my knuckles 5*. I've never agreed w/ rotating the pinion. My thoughts have always been that the proper driveline efficiency is obtained by matching the pinion angle to the motor/trans angle. The motor angle doesn't change when you lift it so the pinion angle wouldn't change either. The shaft would be at a different angle but that's not the important thing. Just another view point. I'm basing my knowledge off of racecars not 4x4's so maybe someone has a good arguement for changing it for scouts.

On the rear driveshaft, that's a reasonable point of view, but on the front, there is less concern about vibration than there is about stress and expansion/contraction of the shaft length. This is all about the speeds involved. Equal and opposite is better for the street, but excessive u-joint angle can be worse on the trail.

[scoutguy66]

I did a spring over and had pretty bad driveline angle but it was managable. Then I cut the bed off and shortened the frame which moved the rear up 21". Some how along the way I ended up with bad driveline bind and started eating U-joints, the yokes on the transfercase side were hitting eachother. I made a different trans crossmember and dropped the t/c down 2-1/2" and it didn't help all that much, so here I am, turning my pinion, among a long list of other things.