hey.....

finishing up my ladder bar install and before i weld the brackets all the way around the axle tube i need to set the pinion angle. i have an angle finder but i just need a walk through on how to do it. thanks in advance.

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=121920

 

what is the difference between pos. and neg. pinion angle? is that if the pinion is pointing up towards the car or down at the ground or something? thanks.

 

also.......on these friggin angle finders there could be 2 different readings depending on how you look at it. which angle is the one you want to look at?

 

Negative pinion angle (what you want) is when the pinion points toward the ground.

 

ah............thank you very much:hail:

 

Actually none of it is in relation to the ground. The pinion could be pointing up and still be negative angle depending on the angle of the driveshaft.

Think of the driveshaft and pinion in perfect alignment. Push up on the u-joint and you have positive angle. Pushing down on the u-joint gets negative angle.

Since there is no diff rotation under accelleration with ladder bars, setting it to zero should work best. 1-2 degrees down angle won't hurt anything.

With any kind of suspension that the diff can rotate under accelleration, the proper pinion angle can vary depending on the application. Usually no more than 5* down angle is needed. The third gen's 3 link/coil spring setup is different than a leaf spring setup. Automatic and manual tranny use a different setup. It's trial and error to see what pinion angle works best for each car.

 

The easy way to look at pinion angle is- Match the pinion to the same degree as the transmission output shaft then lower the front of the pinion 1* to compensate for thrust.

This should be set with the axle loaded with the weght of the car(ride height).

Keep in mind this rule- the angle the {trans to driveshaft} is should match in reverse angle the {driftshaft to pinion}.If one is positive, the other is negative. They just need to cancel out other wise bad harmonics will develop.

 

ah ha......i see said the blind man. you guys have been most helpful. thanks a million.