14' Series Jtech Suspension

[mfexpanda]

I get my caster and camber mixed up. Its the camber that has no adjustment, not the caster which has some adjustment.

I picked up our van from the dealer, in for some last minute warranty work a few week before we left for our 14mth big trip. I reversed the van outside the roller door of my then empty factory, on a bright sunny day. Looking from the back of the factory at the van in the sun, I could clearly see all 4 of the independent axles were each out of horizontal by varying amounts. ie camber was out or they would had to have welded the stub axle on an angle. Not one of the trailing arms was horizontal. I rushed the van back to the dealer fearing our soon to launched big lap had hit a massive structural suspension hurdle.

That's when the whole JTech adjustment story unfolded. No camber adjustment and the dealer adjusts the caster (toe-in) with a tape measure and a square piece of ply held flat against the tyre; measuring the distance of the ply from the chassis front and back of the tyre and adjusting the caster accordingly. Very primitive, but our tyres havent scrubbed out after this high tech method. With the inherent natural tendency for dual axles to be scrubbing on every bend and corner anyway, Im not convinced finite alignment precision is going to help long term ... particularly with us tending to miss every turn off and POI, and requiring 100's of "U" turns.

Long story short there are very few JTech Jaycos with horizontal trailing arms. Some have huge variations in their off camber. At the dealer I looked at 12 new dual JTech vans on display, and found only 2 of the 12 I looked at anywhere near horizontal, with some way worse than mine.

With the seemingly randomly out of camber trailing arm and no mechanism for adjustment, a large percentage of JTech Jaycos all running aruond Oz all out of camber. Our of of camber is obviously not catastrophic because in our 40,000 kms, that out of camber trailing arm doesn't seem to have had any compounding issues on our tyre wear. But any significant out of caster, compounded with significant out of camber would probably result in accelerated interior or exterior edge scrubbing.

I did the tyre to chassis and they were within 1.5mm of each other on the scrubbing wheel

 

[Crusty181]

I did the tyre to chassis and they were within 1.5mm of each other on the scrubbing wheel

That's probably not what you want to see if your looking for something simple to explain the scrubbing.

 

[mfexpanda]

That's probably not what you want to see if your looking for something simple to explain the scrubbing.

yes its probably out vertical .
I measured the wheel next to it and is 6mm closer to the chassis at the same point which makes me think that maybe the bottom of the tyre of the scrubbing one is tipping in closer to the chassis .
its not scrubbing a great deal but the other 3 are perfect

 

[Crusty181]

yes its probably out vertical .
I measured the wheel next to it and is 6mm closer to the chassis at the same point which makes me think that maybe the bottom of the tyre of the scrubbing one is tipping in closer to the chassis .
its not scrubbing a great deal but the other 3 are perfect

All 4 of our axles are out of horizontal. Each wheel is then out of camber, but we dont have any visible uneven wearing. Good starting point, lie on the ground behind the van and see if each of your axles are horizontal

 

[norm walker 1]

Glad I have load shearing leaf springs they get baged out but no toe in problems and easy fixed

 

[WHHEMI]

Glad I have load shearing leaf springs they get baged out but no toe in problems and easy fixed

You can have the same alignment problems with all suspension types

 

[TheEddies]

On the road again. The guys at Jayco Darwin fixed my sus suspension and sent us on our way. We then did the road from Alice to Kings Canyon via Hermansberg and the suspension still looks good. However the road is very bad and the Microwave fell through floor of the cabinet, the fridge door hinge undid its self and the dust inside is incredible. Not realy an outback set up.

 

[WHHEMI]

On the road again. The guys at Jayco Darwin fixed my sus suspension and sent us on our way. We then did the road from Alice to Kings Canyon via Hermansberg and the suspension still looks good. However the road is very bad and the Microwave fell through floor of the cabinet, the fridge door hinge undid its self and the dust inside is incredible. Not realy an outback set up.

What tyre pressure where you running.

 

[Crusty181]

On the road again. The guys at Jayco Darwin fixed my sus suspension and sent us on our way. We then did the road from Alice to Kings Canyon via Hermansberg and the suspension still looks good. However the road is very bad and the Microwave fell through floor of the cabinet, the fridge door hinge undid its self and the dust inside is incredible. Not realy an outback set up.

Unfortunately with Jaycos, microwaves, dust sealing, drawer runners and door hinges are consistent casualties, yet both are relatively easily prevented with an extra couple of hours or so of effort before they leave the factory. We did our own pre-delivery, post-delivery and had no issues after 1000's of km's of rough dusty roads. i was actually surprised just how well the Jayco handled it.