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We Just Bought

BGDG280

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Thornville, Ohio
a '96, 2-Door with 17K on it.

It sadly is really rusty underneath, but got it for $300 and I have put front shocks, stabilizer links and pads and rotors along with some very new used wheels and tires.

Overall, it runs wonderfully, but I do have one ??

When driving it, for no apparent reason, it seems to want to track off to one side or another, not a drift like its wandering, or catching a track in the road, but this almost feels like its got pressure on the steering wheel, pulling it or trying to drive itself.

Tonight I drove it and I noticed as I was coming off a turn, it wanted to stay pointed in the direction of the turn as opposed to driving itself straight as most vehicles do, when I corrected, it seemed to want to pull the other way until I made a serious effort to make it go straight.

Does this sound familiar to anyone, and if so, what was the solution?
 
a '96, 2-Door with 17K on it.

It sadly is really rusty underneath, but got it for $300 and I have put front shocks, stabilizer links and pads and rotors along with some very new used wheels and tires.

Overall, it runs wonderfully, but I do have one ??

When driving it, for no apparent reason, it seems to want to track off to one side or another, not a drift like its wandering, or catching a track in the road, but this almost feels like its got pressure on the steering wheel, pulling it or trying to drive itself.

Tonight I drove it and I noticed as I was coming off a turn, it wanted to stay pointed in the direction of the turn as opposed to driving itself straight as most vehicles do, when I corrected, it seemed to want to pull the other way until I made a serious effort to make it go straight.

Does this sound familiar to anyone, and if so, what was the solution?
New Power steering fluid check tie rod ends, bushings, steering stabilizer, tire pressure, have you had an alignment? Could have a castor/camber issue

But I have to ask, does it really have 17k miles?
 
Maybe an auto locker in the front?

Start with a complete front end inspection.
 
control arm bushings, tres, ball joints, tire pressure, alignment, trackbar, go thru the entire front end
 
Basically "check entire front end" says it all, but I'll add that one thing I've noticed with mine is that if your steering gear is internally healthy (i.e. the gears are unworn and the preload is right) but has a bad pitman shaft bearing, which is quite common, it will have a tendency to wander like that. The road conditions will pull the whole steering mechanism back and forth a little without moving the wheel, which is being damped by the on-center resistance of the box. ON some roads you won't feel it, and then suddenly, if there's a bit of camber or a different surface, it will appear. It's an easy thing to check if you get someone at the steering wheel and go under and look, while they wiggle it back and forth. You'll see that before the pitman arm starts to rotate, it will go sideways a bit. A very tiny bit of this play appears to be unavoidable, but when it gets bad enough, you need to fix or replace.
 
Great info Matthew.

I did do a look over and found nothing irregularly loose or worn. I have many years under vehicles and usually check these things periodically anyway.

I'm wondering about the stabilizer as well, since the shocks were totally trashed, so I imagine the stabilizer isnt much better.

The thing that throws Me on this is that it feels like its being pulled as opposed to just wandering, like its overcentering.
 
Just looking over this, I see no mention of an actual wheel alignment. Caster and camber are mentioned above, though camber isn't readily adjustable. But toe-out can lead to some of the same symptoms, where it seems varying road conditions can intermittently change which wheel sets your direction.

XJ specs call for zero toe-in, but some of us have found that just a tad of toe-in can be better if you're running mainly in 2WD with an older, slacker vehicle. Under power, the front wheels will tend to counteract toe-out, but in 2WD they will not, so any flexibility or wear in steering will put you into toe-out if you start at zero.

I've also had some tires that seemed to amplify any tiny fault, taking a set that complements whatever else is going on. I fought this for a while on an old Mercedes, and thought I was going to go nuts. It was aligned, tuned and fed expensive parts to the point of hardly needing a steering wheel at all, yet it still wandered until I replaced the ****ing tires.

All of these tendencies seem to be accentuated by Saginaw steering gears owing to their fairly abrupt transition from tight on center to loose off center. It does give you an over-center feel when anything else goes wrong.
 
I am going to drive it and look it over more tomorrow and schedule an alignment as well, I have a day off finally, hopefully I can get some info by driving it and looking it over well.

I understand the tire thing, I have run into this issue Myself and it does make you crazy!
 
Ok, if any are wondering, the left rear tire and wheel were loose, I was missing a cpl studs and nothing was open last week when I got it together, I thought it may last a week, guess not.....

I drove it after replacing studs and the crappy lug nuts on that wheel, drives fine now, just has what I would consider a minor amount of normal wander for a 4wd.
 
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