JCR 1-ton Steering

Mine should arrive tomorrow. I'm really curious about who has it, is currently running it, what height your lifts are and general impressions.

Thanks,

Eric

I've been running it for a while on a '99 XJ, 5" lift, 33s and RE Drop Brackets. It's certainly strong, but I've been less than impressed. It wanders on the highway, is generally sloppy and on occassion the assembly will flop over on itself at where the draglink and tierod meet. Plus you gotta get a $70 reamer to install it.

My buddy is running it OTK on his '99 with ~8" lift, longarms and 36s. He's not a huge fan either, but it's better than what he had before.

In fairness, I have heard tons of other folks rave about it being tight and responsive. YMMV.

Good information. Do you have the Poly spacer on the passenger side of your setup? I guess that is supposed to limit the flop on that side...

I've got major slop right now with my Rusty's kit and am tired of changing expensive TREs.

I run it on my 99 and like it, no wondering or anything and I DO have the poly spacer. No issues at all, but I wish I did go OTK with it instead of under like the directions for clearance reasons. I was just in a hurry at the time and didn't want to mess with the swaybar mounts, etc. Running it on 6" of lift and no need for a stabilizer.

I am at about 7" of lift and am thinking I probably should have requested OTK also. I also have the Warn Diff Guard, which will probably have to be modified.

ewander said:

I am at about 7" of lift and am thinking I probably should have requested OTK also. I also have the Warn Diff Guard, which will probably have to be modified.

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the warn diff guard will not be a problem, as the tie rod will be above it. swaybar links and coil buckets will be the areas of concern

I just installed the jcr kit on my jeep. it has a 8" lift and I have no problems whatsoever with UTK. The draglink is a lot longer and is perfectly parallel with my jks adjustable trackbar. I have nearly 3" of engagement left on each side of the tre's. But I do have the BDS dual stabilizer kit off a Bronco.

It rides like a lincoln towncar now. definitely worthwhile if you can't afford other kits and/or just don't feel like playing trial and error.

I forgot to add that setting the alignment is a pain compared to the currie hd steering or the stock steering.

ewander said:

Do you have the Poly spacer on the passenger side of your setup? I guess that is supposed to limit the flop on that side...

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Yes, I do have the poly spacer.

BlackJax said:

I forgot to add that setting the alignment is a pain compared to the currie hd steering or the stock steering.

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Why is it a pain? I thought it would be easier since the tie rod is knuckle to knuckle.

I'm going to install mine as soon as I get my hands on a reamer.

norcal420 said:

Yes, I do have the poly spacer.

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Is it squashed? After less that a thousand miles mine did. It allowed the Tie Rod to flop front to back while turning, creating slop. Made it very interesting getting on the freeway! I emailed them (JCR) a pic and they are sending me a new one. I am not sure if I tightened it down to much and crushed it or it was defective. I do know it's not supposed to flop around!

Jeremy

jrowell said:

Is it squashed? After less that a thousand miles mine did. It allowed the Tie Rod to flop front to back while turning, creating slop. Made it very interesting getting on the freeway! I emailed them (JCR) a pic and they are sending me a new one. I am not sure if I tightened it down to much and crushed it or it was defective. I do know it's not supposed to flop around!

Jeremy

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Interesting. Did JCR mention anything about not tightening it too much after seeing the photo?

I'll have to take a look at mine . . .

Thanks.

Jeep914x4 said:

Why is it a pain? I thought it would be easier since the tie rod is knuckle to knuckle.

I'm going to install mine as soon as I get my hands on a reamer.

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I bought the reamer from snapon. The reason I say it's a pain is that the jamnuts never seem to stay tight. You need a lot of locktite to keep them stationary. Be sure to coat the exposed threads adjacent to the jamnuts with red locktite too (I use the gel version, last a lot longer for me)....

Installed mine about 2 weeks ago and in the process of installing I failed to hold the tie rod while tightening the jam nuts (I know better - just had an elder moment) the poly spacer distorted and mine rocks when turning, so I called and had 2 new spacers sent to me so I can put one on each end of the tie rod (don't put any on the drag link TREs, it needs to be able to rock) I haven't gotten them installed yet but am confident this will tighten things up alot. I think it's much easier to set toe and center the steering wheel with this set up than the stock inverted Y linkage - more like a normal alignment procedure. I plan to wheel my junk this weekend without the spacers and feel this set up will keep me from bending my steering like last trip to Hot Springs, Superlift ORV park. I will post up results once I get the spacers in place undamaged by my stupidity.

One note of interest - I had pretty serious interference with the lower track bar bolt head, enough that it limited my turning radius more than I was willing to accept, soooo, removed the right side TRE and using a press (don't use heat) put a slight bow into the TRE to get proper clearance (also removed stock track bar bolt and replaced with one with a thinner head) - now my turning radius is back to normal (already had steering stop bolts shimmed from when I had stock wheels). As we all know all XJs are different and most won't need this additional clearance for the tie rod.

This stuff sure is stout - like Jeep should have installed.

Sorry to be so long winded - hope it all makes sense and maybe is even of some help.

Mike

pics of the setup on your rig?

I've never used a reamer before and don't know how to work it. But I have this kit waiting to be installed. A local offroad shop wants $100 to install. Should I just have them do it or do it myself? It seems for an extra $30, I might as well save myself the time of doing it and having a reamer lying around the garage after I used it one time.

ddeadserious said:

I've never used a reamer before and don't know how to work it. But I have this kit waiting to be installed. A local offroad shop wants $100 to install. Should I just have them do it or do it myself? It seems for an extra $30, I might as well save myself the time of doing it and having a reamer lying around the garage after I used it one time.

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I make my living working on Jaguars and had the reamer in my tool box and if someone had offered to install mine for $100 I would have had to consider it :roll: especially if they included setting the toe and centering the steering wheel. Not a bad job to do, but this is not really a driveway project - of course I'm spoiled to having a lift available to me not to mention a drill press and in my case an air over hydraulics press (don't forget the 5/8" and 11/16" drill bits along with the reamer). Or if you feel confident you can do it, doing your own mods is always very satisfying and of course sometimes frustrating.

Mike

Smittty9785 said:

pics of the setup on your rig?

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I'll try to get some pics this weekend :cheers:

Just installed mine in the driveway about 4 hours ago. Been sitting in my garage for about 4 months before today. Pretty straitforward install, but as it has been said before, don't waste your money on the snap-on reamer. I agree setting the steering wheel position and toe in/out is much eaiser then the stock setup. No slop in my steering yet, but time (and rocks) will tell.

The benefit of the snap on reamer is that it lasts longer than the cheap ones. There are better reamers (MM, Mac Tools, etc) but it's the least expensive, quality reamer I've found. It should last for a few dozen installs--which is nice because if you ever break the JCR steering, you may need to ream some more knuckles/pitman arm.