OTK steering issues/concerns

2 questions reguarding 2 differant jeeps. I have done searching of differant shop websites and here at Naxja and couldn't figure out either.

1st issue, 90 xj, 6.5" lift, rusty's knuckle to knuckle steering, RE 1660 trac bar+ bracket
Been reading about how to get the dead spot out of my steering and I had planned to get the Goferit OTK inserts. Looks like this would fix my issue. My conclusion was that I would also need a raised trac bar mount and a shorter tracbar. My question is can I use the RE mount with another tracbar that might be the right length? Any first hand knowledge of a tracbar that may be a nice fit or am I looking at getting the mount first, measure and then looking?

2nd issue, 97 xj, 3" lift planned, JCR 1 ton otk steering, RE 1660 trac bar and bracket
We are planning on lifting my friends xj to 3"s for now so he can fit his current 31s off his old jeep. His long term plans are TNT y link at 6ish lift. So his thoughts are 3" now to fit his tires, then assemble parts for his plans. He is in need of steering and figured if he buys the JCR steering once he won't have to worry about it again. However we aren't sure if we need to relocate the trac bar mount at 3" of lift. I orginally thought if you did OTK you HAVE to raise the TB to prevent bad bumpsteer however the picture on JCR's sight seams like if you have small lift you may not need to:

So can we do a 3" lift with the JCR 1 ton OTK steering with an RE 1660 TB in the factory location? Gonna be a DD until it's Big jeep time.

Thanks for any help you can supply

i have that same steering set up u got in that pic i had to raise my sway bar mounts up higher to clear the draglinks the on road was alot better more quicker reaction time and offroading was awsome it didnt pull side to side when i climbed rocks it felt more stiff

I just installed my JCR steering last week. The amount of lift you run is irrelevant, what does matter is what trackbar setup you have. I ened up moving my trackbar mount about 4.5 inches over and probably 3 inches up. The angles ended up being perfect.
As long as you can easily shorten your trackbar it is as simple as fabbing up a new axle mount.

jonzer12 said:

I just installed my JCR steering last week. The amount of lift you run is irrelevant, what does matter is what trackbar setup you have. I ened up moving my trackbar mount about 4.5 inches over and probably 3 inches up. The angles ended up being perfect.
As long as you can easily shorten your trackbar it is as simple as fabbing up a new axle mount.

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It look like you just did a lot of front end work. Nice shinny ball joints, grease free TRE's and a paint job fit for a show room,.... It also seem you are using the OEM upper control arm and attach the axle truss to it. I have not seen that done before. That is what I had in mind when I truss my D30.
Is your steering OTK or UTK? Could not tell from the pics.

I lieve you can use the JKS "builders" trackbar and their over the axle brack and still use the RE "frame" side bracket.

I have the same setup as the OP, JCR OTK and RE1600 HD trackbar and bracket. What you need to do is get the OTA bracket welded on then cut the trackbar so you can reuse the rubber bushing & it's housing (steel sleeve). Then find the proper length needed for the trackbar, grind off all the old tube from the bushing housing then reshape the tube (prep for welding) to fit the housing (like you were doing it for the first time) and weld it up. Bolting the sleeve into the new bracket helps a lot. Make sure you set the flex joint so when it finished it will be in the middle of the treads so you have adjustment either way. I hope that's pretty clear?

I went with the OTA trackbar because I had clearance issues with just about everything (coil buckets, swaybar, steering stabilizer and trackbar mounts) it seemed like going OTK made it almost necessary to go OTA as well. I really like having trackbar up out of the rocks so it was worth the extra work at least to me.

My setup is over the knuckle. To find the trackbar position I just ran a rope from the pitman arm, through the frameside trackbar mount and down to the axle. Run it through where ever your draglink is connecting and just position the other length so its parrallel. You can decide how long to make your trackbar based on what kind of clearance you have to fab a mount.

Techno1154 I did not attach the truss to the stock passenger UCA mount. I made a jig to position it and then cut it off and built my truss than just welded the top few inches back on. I had never pressed out the stock bushing before I didn't realize that the stock mount is just a piece of channel with 2 holes in each side. I figured this out after welding it on. Had I known I would have just found some tube/pipe with the right ID and made a better mount, You can see where I tweaked mine pressing out the old bushing.

jonzer12 said:

Techno1154 I did not attach the truss to the stock passenger UCA mount. I made a jig to position it and then cut it off and built my truss than just welded the top few inches back on. I had never pressed out the stock bushing before I didn't realize that the stock mount is just a piece of channel with 2 holes in each side. I figured this out after welding it on. Had I known I would have just found some tube/pipe with the right ID and made a better mount, You can see where I tweaked mine pressing out the old bushing.

Click to expand...

That was what I was thinking regarding the OEM bracket. I have not started working on mine as yet just getting together some ideas. That project is still about 2 months off.