Hello Forum,

I have installed the 5'' calmini suspension in January this year on my samurai, and since then I posted a thread about the pinion angle of the front axle looking about 5 degrees downwards instead of looking at the transfer case. I have run the sammy since then without any major problems, but in the past months the trouble started. first, the part where the shock absorber attaches on the u-bolt skid plate (that came with the calmini kit) broke. both were broken, and I would have imagined that this would happen if a longer than needed shock absorber was installed. Couldnt figure out what was the problem, I welded both in place.  Now I noticed that one of the front shocks has leaked oil. I worry about buying new shocks that I might damage them again.

Could this be caused by the unnatural pinion angle (which is the same the lower shock support welded to the skid plate)

Is this caused by the shackle reversal? How bad would shims affect the steering performance, caster angles?

and most importantly can anyone with a 5'' calmioni lift confirm that their pinion angle of the front axle looks downwards??? could it be a wrong shackle on the back of the leaf spring (a longer than needed shackle) that would rotate the axle in such a way?

Thank you!
Kledi

I would have thought that it is more likely that your shocks are too short causing them to top out hard continuously. It could also be caused by them being too long (or bumpstops too short) and bottoming out hard.

I suspect its the way the leaf springs are mounted. I guess I need to rotate the front leafs by 180deg to  get the axle and the pinion angle in the correct position. This was suggested in a reply to a previous post: http://www.zukiworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=20466.0

but i didnt try that when first mentioned, and trusted the calmini installation guide.

Is this worth a try now? I plan to do that next week.

hello,
im bumping this thread up again, as i havent done anything to the zuk yet. still waiting for the new shocks to arrive. Can anyone confirm the orientation of the front leaf springs of the calmini 5'' lift for the samurai?

thank you.
kledi

I wouldn't worry about rotating your axle to point your third member at the transfer case.  With U-Joints you actually want your u-joints to be level with one another.  A slight downward angle would, if anything, case a bit of unnatural vibrations when you are running around with the front hubs locked in.
Unless you plan on adding a Spring Over lift to those lift springs you should be ok.

Flipping your springs around will only change things up if you have different length of springs in front and back. It will also slide your axle forward or backwards, depending on the difference in lengths. 

In this case, with the front axle I do not worry about the vibrations caused by the uneven angles of the u-joints, but the angle of the lower shock mount. The shock does not sit vertically on the mount, and I suspect that is why the shock and the lower support broke.

Before you put the shock mount on heat it up and bend it a little bit.  you might also want to have it stick out just a little bit further behind then before, in order to give it a little more clearance from the axle.

You might try giving Calmini a call as well, they may have run into this before and have a different solution for you.