Steering/front suspension advice.

I've neglected my XJ for the last few years, spending lots of time away from home working. I've kept up on the regular maintenance, but that's it. A little over a year ago I let my neighbors 17 year old run it while his XJ was broken, just so it would be used. He parked it and moved away over a year ago, the only use it's seen since then is pulling hay around.

Fast forward to yesterday. I got around to replacing the rear shocks, changing the oil, discovered a broken bar pin in the front, replaced it. replaced a leaky steering box, changed the oil, topped off the transmission and drove to town.

The death wobble is unbelievable. Last time I drove it I went to Houston and back ~2000 miles with no issue save for a bit of clunking. Now I can't go a block without her trying to shake herself apart.


The difficulty is that I have basically every RockKrawler front suspension/steering:

3 link (brackets bolted/welded to frame rails, differential UCA mount modified.)
Bomb proof track bar/mount (bolted on and welded to adjacent frame plating)
Bomb proof steering. (Knuckles drilled for bolts) constantly working loose.


Step 1 I'm thinking will be to see if they have upgrades to the heim joints and replace/torque everything to spec and realign.

Or should I cut it all off and start over with ?????.

Check for the usual suspects but also look for cracks in the frame around the steering box. Good luck, DW can be a huge problem to find and correct.

Start with the basics, make sure everything is tight/ no play

How are your tires?

Tires could be the issue. Try rotating them first and see if that affects anything.
If the instability shifts or stops, you've got a culprit.

Yes there is a crack in the frame. It's under the plating.

Rotating the tires....yeah...that's an undertaking. I don't think I have enough equipment to remove that many tires at once. Well maybe I do, but with no driveway and soft unstable dirt...last time I jacked something up on this dirt it fell and trapped 2 floor jacks underneath.


That reminds me, my caster is off, I've adjusted the links out as far as I dare to correct it, it was good for several thousand miles as mentioned. That and the constant clunking has me wanting to start over. Oh, and the tie rod is wearing notches into the knuckles where it rests.

Ok, so the problem was that I'm unmotivated.


I went out, cleaned up the welds on the brace and the tie in to the bumper had cracked (not surprising given the magnitude of the shaking). I grooved and re welded that (got good penetration).

Then I had my wife wiggle the steering wheel. The top of the trac bar had some play, so I tightened the living hell out of it and tack welded the bolt head to the bracket.

I then checked my alignment, it was straight, no toe. So I tightened the tie rod 1/2 turn.

Test drove, and it's still trying to wobble when I hit a bump. Not quite getting to full wobble, but it won't take long to wear something out enough to do it. There was a tiny bit of play in the heim tie rod ends, so are there replacements for these heims that aren't heim joints?

I'll have to get new wheels, my spare is bent and I'm pretty sure one rear is bent a bit too. that's another reason I haven't rotated, I really can't. Are soft 8s still $35?

My advice would be to put in tapered inserts (easier than new knuckles) & go "not heims" steering, or double-shear everything and get both sides to fit the bolt snug.
After that... keep looking for what's loose / clunking, because it's probably causing (or at least contributing) to the wobble.
How's your axle side TB mount? wallowed? What kind of joint is in there?

I had two separate issues a few years ago. First was a wallowed axle side TB mounting hole, as yossarian said.

Second was my RE frame side double shear track bar mount was flexing back and forth, even after I torqued it as much as I could (as you did). I added the RE trackbar brace, which worked initially, but then it came back. Eventually I took everything off, cleaned it up, new bolts, out everything back on torqued it down, and no problems since then.

Now I have a worn out rock krawler LCA bushing and joint