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did alignment,still pulls to the right?

outlander

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Columbus,Ohio
89 xj,re 5.5" short arm lift with hd adjustable trac bar,34x10.50 ltb's
set the toe in at 1/8" as per spec,trac bar is centered,tire pressures are equal.Still pulls to the right....what do I need to look at to stop the pull?
Am I going to have to get adjustable control arms to cure this?
Thanks
 
did you recenter the steering wheel? or is just off center from the lift. After the lift the drag link needs to be longer , if not the wheel will be off.
 
Aren't most roads crowned?I'm just worried that my front tire life is going to be shortened with the pull to the right.....so is the crown in the road causing this?I've heard that vehicles here in the US. have a alignment bias built in to account for the crown in the road??
 
Last edited:
outlander said:
Aren't all roads crowned?I'm just worried that my front tire life is going to be shortened with the pull to the right.....

what Im saying is if the road is crowned it should pull a little to the right, it follows the crown

check it in a fat parking lot to see if it still pulls
 
Maybe radial tire pull-I think thats what they call it, when the tire is worn in with out of adjustment wheel alignment, alignment is corrected and it will still pull because of the irregularly worn tire? We get this sometimes on major services and tire rotations. "why is my car pulling to the left?it was fine before I brought it in". Try rotating front to back and see If it makes a difference. Some alignment shops are lazy too, I brought mine to an alignment shop because I hit a stump, well I got it back and it went straight but my steering wheel was still a quarter turn out.
 
another quick test would be to swap the two front tires side to side ( if they are not directional ) .
if it pulls to the other side or cancels the pull/drift , tires not alignment.
 
Did you have this pull before the lift? If not, changing out rear springs and adding degree shims under the leaf packs could have resulted in a misaligned rear axle, resulting in an incorrect "thrust angle". If you added drop brackets to the front control arms, it's possible to miss align the front axle, resulting in a steering bias to one side. Also, differences in LCA shim-packs in the LCA frame mounts could bias the front axle alignment. If the pull was there before the lift was installed, add worn out upper ball joints to the possibilities, which could result in excessive camber on one side. Camber differences from one side to the other will cause pull. Get a wheel alignment and you will know if it's camber or thrust angle problems.
 
You might want to check the front axle pinion angle. I had a similar problem with my wife's TJ. The thing was a tough to drive. I had an alignment and still had the problem. A buddy saw the alignment readout and said the pinion was the issue. I brought it down and sure enough, it smoothed out.

Just a thought...
 
Would the track bars/ pinion angle be the reason why my Chero seems to want to chase every down hill angle in the road? Getting into ruts and any road surface that is in the least bit off-cambered causes the Jeep to start to 'run' down-hill. I was thinking that the steering gear was needing adjustment, but that is nice and tight, now I am either thinking the track bars, or maybe even because of no sway-bar...
 
Thanks for all the advice.I did have a bit of a problem installing the passenger side drop bracket.Looks like I need to quit being so cheap and go get a real alignment to find out if the db is causing this.I'll try rotating tires first though.

astsifrtsi:sounds like your caster is off to me.Out of spec caster will cause the jeep to follow ruts in the road.
 
Ok, thanks, I will add that to the list of things to look into for this, fairly high in the short list...
I forgot to mention that the Chero is a 90 with 2 inch springs and 2 inch spacers. I guess I had better get a sig going so peeps know what I have...
 
Unless you have a dragging brake, it's most likely a castor or camber problem. My '87 and both of my '89s need castor correction because they weren't particularly carefull at the factory. Castor and camber are not designed to be adjusted; however, you can do so with offset ball joints. There used to be aftermarket offset bushings available that could be used on the lower ball joint to adjust caster and camber. You'll need a caster/camber gauge if you want to mess with this yourself. I found one on ebay a few years ago for around $50.
 
No dragging brakes I just rebuilt the entire system.

You don't need a camber gauge...you just need a square and a angle finder to check it.Check out gojeeps site for info on caster/camber.
 
If you want to correct an pull to one side that is caused by alignment then you will need a caster/camber gauge unless you are lucky enough to get it right by trial and error along with eating up several sets of tires. The gojeep method is used to coarsely correct caster error caused by lifting the front suspension. It's very useful for curing death wobble but won't do you any good in rectifying an alignment problem that causes pull or tire wear.
 
Well, in a way.im glad to hear that my junk isnt the only one out there pulling to the right( even after alignment)...... Hey i've just gottn use to steering to the left costantly!:yap:
 
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