Im in the middle of a spring over axle on my 91 samurai, but im stumped with the pinion angles?!
Where do i start? i am doing this lift myself and really this is my first obstacle, I dont want the samurai to have a shake or vibration on the highway. Im wondering what the best way to measure the angle is without an angle finder.

im surprised that i could not find anything on the search that was directly related to this problem, not even on the web!?
any guidance would be appreciaterd!

Thanks
-Tim

the rear is 11 deg. up on the flange, the front you want to look at the king pins from the side and make sure the top one is leaning back twards the windshield just a little bit, mine the flange points directly inline with the driveshaft, is this what ur talking about?

Oh ya, on the rear take your drive shaft all the way off and put the rearend in with the u bolts loose and put the vehicle weigh on it, take a streight edge and put it on the flange on the back of your t case, now get the rear end parallel on the flange with the t case and bump it down about 2 deg. weld the perches to the diff(tack weld them) lift the weight off the rear and finish welding.

the front you want to look at the king pins from the side and make sure the top one is leaning back twards the windshield just a little bit, mine the flange points directly inline with the driveshaft, is this what ur talking about?

The easiest way to get the front EXACTLY right is to weld the new pads on so that the surface of the new perch where the spring rests is EXACTLY (can I use the word EXACTLY one more time in this sentence???  It is that important!) parallel to the surface of the original perch (assuming you haven't ground it off yet).  You can determine this by using a inclinometer (one of those round-faced angle gages with a flat magnetic base).  Clamp it onto the face of your old perch at right angles to the axis of the axle and note the angle.  Without rotating or otherwise changing the axle's position, remove the inclinometer and slap it onto the new perch and adjust the perch's position on the axle until the inclinometer reads EXACTLY (!) 180 degrees opposite of the first reading.  Weld.

If you change the pinion angle on the front axle in any way (especially in the tempting "raise the rear of the third member up so the flange is square to the driveshaft", you will mess up the handling!  The most common result of changing the front pinion angle is that the wheels will start acting  like the bent front casters on a banged-up shopping cart -- wobble-wobble-wobble.

Naturally, if you have cut off the old perches, you have your work cut out for you.  mrfuelish's explanation covers that situation.  You can find the exact angle measurements on my FAQ website:

(http://www.ackerdackerly.com/samurai/indexFAQ.html.   

Scroll down the contents frame on the left until you see "Samurai Drivetrain".  The information is in the first article, "Caster Angle in Steering Specification Table".

I hope this helps!

Parallel with old mounts.

Clamp a two foot chunk of straight steel to the old mount,
a two foot chunk of steet to the new mount,
set the new mount on the axle.
Measure the distance between the two pieces out at the ends.
Adjust new mount until distances are equal.
Mount is parallel when the measurements are equal

   

Parallel with old mounts.

Clamp a two foot chunk of straight steel to the old mount,
a two foot chunk of steet to the new mount,
set the new mount on the axle.
Measure the distance between the two pieces out at the ends.
Adjust new mount until distances are equal.
Mount is parallel when the measurements are equal

Wow!  So simple!

Sometimes a college education does get in the way, I guess.

Today's "Git-er Done" award goes to zutefisk!

Infinitely humbled, I remain,

Ya he did not give a whole lot to go on like if he still had the old mounts on or not! and what shackles he had, if they are longer than stock you can't go off of the old perches.

Thanks for all the help, and yes everything is stock and old perches are still intact so all will work fine.

i know where to go for help now!
Where i live N0 ONE nows anyything about samurai's, So this is great

Thanks again! 

Where do ya live? or is that top secret 

Top secret...... Newfoundland, Canada.
Next to all samurai's in this province are used as wood rigs or for plowing snow, people arn't really interested in raising them!
Plus 99% of the samurai's here are rusted to pieces, luckily i found mine in a shed 

The information supplied is right on the mark.
 However: If you have a degree wheel that measures angles for caster / camber you can point the pinion straight at the transfer box on the front end. Cut the knuckles carefully with a micro disk in a grinder and spin them BACK until they are at 3.5 degrees castor angle ( factory ) or kick them back a little to around 5 degrees to help your rig steer a little straighter with bigger rubber. Also when you are finished set your toe at 6mm ( max factory spec ) to help with straight line stability. Make sure you get a high steer kit though - do not build a "Z" link - they are S|removethispart|@%T! With a high steer and the correct steering geometry I beleive they drive better than stock. Just dont go all soft and mushy on the springs and shocks and all will be well.