What's that popping sound?

This was the question I have been asking myself for a long time and have slower worked towards narrowing it down to 1 thing.

In my first order of business I took apart my front end cuz I knew the Jeep was popping when I was making corners or taking turns. I took apart the steering to inspect the tie rods and while I was there swapped out my old tired out control arm bushings with poly ones I got for Christmas. Well when I removed my track bar I noticed that the bracket on the axle had the hole wallowed out.

My fix was grab a 1/2 grade 5 bolt with a steel sleeve that still fit in the poly bushing and allowed me to use the larger bolt. BAM! popping fixed I'm good to go...
:smsoap:Nope, still some popping so I have my friend run the Jeep while turning the wheel and I inspect underneath. Well the axle was going all over the place but the first thing I noticed was that the TRE on the pitman arm/draglink was shot. So I started sourcing ZJ parts but I gave in to the Crown HD XJ Steering. Cost me $180 and got both solid 1" think draglink, tierod, and a new stabilizer to boot. Bam! Problem fixed and I'm upgraded for larger tires should I go that route. Silly me forgot about that whole axle moving all over the place.

:smsoap: Well still have a popping so I get under the Jeep again and noticed that the TRE on the trackbar is moving around. Okay last piece left in steering I haven't touched. I figured I just never tightened it enough with the limited amount of wrenching space I had to deal with. My solution...remove the trackbar and the braket...install together outside Jeep so ensure I tightened it enough and got a cotter pin installed. (I didn't before) But upon inspection by my buddy who is the welder noticed that the welds that held the 2 pieces of the bracket together were completely cracked. Ah Ha!! it was poor welding that did it. Got it all cleaned up welded to excess painted up and mounted back on the Jeep.

Try to inspect the underside of the Jeep one more time while my buddy turned the steering and wouldn't you know it the TRE on the trackbar didn't just fix itself and is still bad. Lucky for me I got an extra for a buddy who did a lift on his wrangler and I have all his stock parts.

SO for those that hate reading.
I had popping sound.
-Installed 1/2" bolt for trackbar/axle mount
-Upgraded all steering to Crown HD XJ Steering
-Found shot welds in trackbar frame bracket
-Still have bad TRE in trackbar
:wierd:
Prety long winded I know but just wanted to share my luck with steering slop and the annoying popping so many of us found. Oh and removing the frame trackbar bracket is tons of fun when you have to remove the engine mount it's connected to.

Just to be sure, are you saying it is fixed now?

joe_peters said:

Just to be sure, are you saying it is fixed now?

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X2
That's what I was trying to figure out... :dunno:

~Scott

The TRE on the trackbar is pretty shot. But at this point I'm just going to let it pop since I know what the noise is and it's not going to hurt anything since most of the play in the trackbar was from the bracket itself.

You might get death wobble as the tracbar bushing wears out more.

When I drilled the hole out larger I popped out the old bushing and replaced it with a new poly one. So I have that covered

if your buddy's a welder, why not re-weld the bracket? (also, is it an oem bracket?) you want to fix that crack... it WILL propagate... have you seen the results from a busted tracbar while moving over 20mph?

this thread should be renamed '50 things i did to not fix a problem, and how i ignored the real problem'.... may be too long =\

I thought my "pop" was coming from a TRE or bushing. Turned out the frame rail was cracked behind the track bar/motor mount bracket. You could just barely see a little crack emerging out from under the bracket. Reinforced with a plate & welded everything in sight and that seemed to fix the problem. However, what it probably also needs is a RE frame brace.
dn

xcm said:

if your buddy's a welder, why not re-weld the bracket? (also, is it an oem bracket?) you want to fix that crack... it WILL propagate... have you seen the results from a busted tracbar while moving over 20mph?

Click to expand...

This was in my first post.

Ah Ha!! it was poor welding that did it. Got it all cleaned up welded to excess painted up and mounted back on the Jeep.

The bracket was welded back up and fixed.
I'm looking at it as 1 bad TRE is alot better than what I was working with before I started fixing things.

Do not replace the TRE on the track bar for a while. You really havent lived until you have experienced full blown, I cant keep it on the road, Oh sht I am about to die, change your drawers death wobble. Its especially fun in heavy fast traffic.

Once you experience this life changing or perhaps life ending experience change out the TRE or have your heirs do so.

John

nosigma said:

Do not replace the TRE on the track bar for a while. You really havent lived until you have experienced full blown, I cant keep it on the road, Oh sht I am about to die, change your drawers death wobble. Its especially fun in heavy fast traffic.

Once you experience this life changing or perhaps life ending experience change out the TRE or have your heirs do so.

John

Click to expand...

Death wobble is more fun in a 7800lb Diesel pickup.... BTW, never buy a KYB steering stabilizer