Out of ideas Someone fix my steering woes....

Let me give a brief overview of my setup first. Hp dana 44 narowed to waggy width with hi steer arms, three link and heim steering with a wj pitman arm. About a month and a half ago I went into firestone for my routine lifetime alignment and came out with a vehicle that was undriveable. Forced me left to right while trying to drive straight and massive bumpsteer on bumps. I had no evident problems before and rig was even decent at 70 mph. They had told me my driver side ball joints were shot so took a look and sure enough they were in bad shape. I replaced them and problem became worse. After making sure everything was tight as can be and checking frame for any cracks I noticed a little play in sector shaft and figured maybe some in durango box failed even though it was just rebuilt by psc. I swapped box for stock xj box and replaced passenger side ball joints as well. Problem was just as evident so I started getting real picky. Saw little play in steering shaft so I replaced it and got another alignment since things were off again. Still forcing me all over the road. I even adjusted my pinion angle to 6.5 degrees from 10 and it band aided the problem a little but not the answer. Also all joint in control arms are ballistic joints that are brand new and heims are all in good shape as well. Im getting desperate trying to get this thing streetable again. Is there anything I have missed. Could I be having some sort of steering shaft failure in the column possibly???





Dont know if pictures help but just an idea of what my setup is.

Your panhard bar is rather short and your drag link is rather long.
What degree does your fandangladometer read when placed on the high steer arm?

What specs are they aligning it to? I've always aligned mine myself with a tape measure and a little time. Not that thats always the right way to do it, but mine always liked 1/8" toe in. 1/4" or more toe in and it drove completely different and even had some death wobble.

Jes said:

Your panhard bar is rather short and your drag link is rather long.
What degree does your fandangladometer read when placed on the high steer arm?

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8 degrees from the quality harbor freight special degree finder. I hadnt had any problems with track bar and draglink so I had ruled that out.

X1994J said:

What specs are they aligning it to? I've always aligned mine myself with a tape measure and a little time. Not that thats always the right way to do it, but mine always liked 1/8" toe in. 1/4" or more toe in and it drove completely different and even had some death wobble.

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Not sure I didnt ask firestone as there relationship with me isnt great since I bring my vehicle in a lot at no charge. Sounds like a possibility since I went in with no evident problem and came out with a massive one. I had death wobble on the way home the first time as well but it was fixed after replacing ball joint.... You think this could cause wandering left to right basically non stop?

I would double check the alignment. and with crossover steering, why are you having a disgruntled high school kid do it anyway?

ya make sure you get a printout of the alligment, so you can see the numbers for yourself.

toe in and toe out can do some very wacky things. i would check it all out with a tape measure

still no good, you can fudge the machine to make the numbers look right, and still have it drive like crap.

Check it to be close with a tape, then take it for a road test, adjust it on the go is really the only way to get it dialed in perfect.

souske said:

still no good, you can fudge the machine to make the numbers look right, and still have it drive like crap.

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true, thats why when i cant do my own allignments im standing over the tech doing it's shoulder lol
(thank god im back in a shop starting tuesday)

So in that case am I trying to get it at 1/8" toe in? I tape measured it real quick, probably wasnt as accurate as I would have liked but it appeared dead even. And why would I have firestone align is anyways??? I gues because I had lifetime alignents there since I had a turd and a few years back so I just use them. Obviously maybe not anymore.

Another tip. put the front up on jackstands, use a third jackstand as a chalk/sharpie rest, then spin the tire. Repeat for other side. This works alot better than trying to guess at the sidewall lugs.

I cant see the pic since Im on a work computer right now but I had an idea. Did they adjust your pan hard at all? If your axle is to one side a little you will have to counter steer just to drive in a strait line (you will be crab walking), and since you have caster the tires will kinda ride on the edge trying to go back flat (strait) in relation to the axle. This will do a whole bunch of wierd things to your steering as well. Same thing will happen if one of your lower control arms are a different length. What kind of work have you done to your jeep before this last alignment?

I go through les schwab for my tires because of the warranty. I know the guys there so well now that I stand in the pit with them when they align my rigs after I finish doind installations. I do all my own aligning first using a tape and angle finder. They get suprised time and time again and have only had to make adjustments 1 time in the past 8 rigs I have taken there. So I dont get charged if they dont mess with it. My point is. You can definitely get close enough by yourself.

I wonder if they adjusted your control arms... Measure your wheel base on both sides, it should be exactly the same.

I would try setting the toe, try 1/4" toe in to start with. If they have it set at 0 with no toe in it will wander and drive weird for sure.. like I said, mine always drove great with 1/8" of toe in. Any more and it would wander, and even had death wobble.

Also keep in mind that toe should really be set using degrees and not inches. 1/8" toe is significantly different on a rig with stock tires vs something with 33s or 35s. Your toe measurement in inches should increase with tire size if you are keeping the degrees of toe constant. If they set you to factory specs in inches it might not be enough with those big tires.

I just saw your running a 3 link or y link? So my theory could be correct, you should check your wheel base and arm lengths. Since you only have 1 upper arm you can actually change the caster just by adjusting the passenger LCA. and If they only adjusted 1 control arm to change the caster and didnt ever check to see if the axle was square with the vehicle then you would be crab walking. Still just theory though.

I did some aligning today. I first measured and it was about a 1/4" toe in....so I adjust and made it about 1/16" to 1/8" toe in. Maybe helped a tiny bit but still kinda force wandered me off the road when I took it for a test drive and loss of control over pot holes. I have asked firestone in the past and they claimed to never mess with control arms/ track bars but im not exatly monitering there work so I cant prove this. Plus it would seem like a ton of work especially on a rig like mine where arms are mounted to custom crossmember. I will check wheel base and track bar centering tomorrow although I hadnt messed with this stuff at all since it was all dialed in. I guess I can inspect ballistic joints for failure as well but I just dont believe a newer ballistic joint would have already failed.

Maybe this is a dumb question but my turning is a tiny bit sharper turned to passenger side then driver side. Which means when I swapped the steering box I didnt have it dead centered internally in the box. regardless of steering wheel position would internal ratio in box affect driving it straight down road??? Couldnt find any info on this searching so I didnt think it could be a cause.

With the rig sitting on the ground have some one start it and turn the wheel back and forth slow at first look at everything then do it again moving the wheel with a Lil more force and look everything over again. The rig can stress things allot more than you can by hand. With the three link did you check the housing real well. It does stress the housing allot more could have popped a tube loose. I've seen it happen in a drag car on the rear its a Lil different but when the axle flexed it drove the car hard right. Something to check.

put your angle finder on the panhard and drag link they look slightly off to me. Also are you sure the high steer arms have the holes the same distance from the ball joint?