New 1 ton steering in, pics/questions

Funny how you can tell whats new on the jeep based on shinyness factor (starter, arms, steering)



Reaming/drilling the pitman was a pain, knuckles were total cake, hell i reamed 3/4 of the driver knuckle with my hand haha

with that said, my front end still feels like crap, not sure what more its gonna take, every time i turn the wheel i get a pop or a couple pops. i dont see any stress in the unibody, and the trackbar is a new TNT bar fully greased. :dunno: :dunno: :dunno: :dunno:

could this be steering box related? i really am out of ideas for it, when im under there i cant pinpoint where its coming from, but steering links/ends have now been 100% ruled out.

how does this steering drive on street?
usually popping sounds i have ever had are all from stock steering with big tires so thats a good question.
i would think maybe steering shaft, my toyota shaft popped quite a bit.

If you are parked on pavement and turn from lock to lock does it pop? If so get someone to turn the wheel while you check it out. Also have someone turn it anywho and see if anything moves. Could be a busted steering box bolt or spacer?

hmm steering shaft i didnt even think to check that for shenanigans, thanks for the suggestion, ill check it out tomorrow

anyone else feel free to chime in as well

PornstaR said:

If you are parked on pavement and turn from lock to lock does it pop? If so get someone to turn the wheel while you check it out. Also have someone turn it anywho and see if anything moves. Could be a busted steering box bolt or spacer?

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yeah the bolts/spacer are good to go

ive had someone operate it before while i looked, i just cant pinpoint it, definitely nothing visible from the front of the jeep moving around

sitting still and turning the wheel yeah it pops, as well as when driving

check your ball joints.

I spent months tracing the popping down on my old XJ and it turned out to be ball joints..

If it will pop repeteably, have a friend turn the steering, and touch the steering box, knuckles, etc. See if you can FEEL it. If it makes noise, you can probably feel movement even if you can't see it.

tbburg said:

If it will pop repeteably, have a friend turn the steering, and touch the steering box, knuckles, etc. See if you can FEEL it. If it makes noise, you can probably feel movement even if you can't see it.

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another interesting idea...
thanks for the ideas guys, ill check all of what was mentioned tomorrow

Just another idea, but I had the problem once because I had bought poly track bar bushings, and they had the inside diameter on the axle end for a yj instead of an xj, and there was movement there. Took me over a year to figure it out. Hope you find it.

Both my jeep and my brothers jeep have the exact same problem, driving me crazy. We have already replaced tie rods, drag links, track bars. We thought it was the steering box, so we replaced that, does an amazing job turning the 33's, but didn't fix the poping sound. dont know what else to look at. Steering shaft is also in good condition. any other ideas?

Disconnect the track bar from the frame, then turn the steering lock to lock while parked and see if the poping goes away. For me it was the track bar frame mount that would flex on the unibody.

Check that bolt at the top of the track bar and make sure its the right
size.

subscribing as my son's '87 XJ is doing the same thing and I'm having a hard time pinpointing the pop. His stuff is all stock, so I'll double check the steering box and other suggestions here.

Keep us updated if/when you find it.

I got $5 on it being the track bar frame bracket. The bolts underneath, specifically. You can get those merf's as tight as possible and that bracket will still shift. I replaced everything on my front end before finally noticing it.

If you've eliminated the steering box spacer/bolts, you may want to take a second look at the upper and lower trac-bar mount. In your picture I can see that the upper bracket is a TNT one so it's not the bracket but it may be that the bolts that attach it have backed off a touch. On the diff side, check the bracket to see if it has a crack in it. One of our XJ's had a similar pop which was difficult to find because of where the diffs side bracket had cracked.

The factory inner steering box spacer is made of aluminum. If the bolts had been loose at one point, it can become damaged and make it difficult to get the bolts tight...check that too. But since removing it is a pain, leave that until all other diag has been done.

The bolt/bolt hole in your TNT unibody side trac-bar mount is punched to be true-sized to the bolt that goes through the small trac-bar bracket. There shouldn't be any slop here. You can check it to be sure but I'm fairly confident that you're good there.

The bolt hole in the diff side trac-bar bracket could have wobbled out if issues caused it to do with a previous trac-bar setup (worn, sloppy, etc). The trac-bar on this end has a factory style double bonded assembly (bushing) which has the factory sized through hole in the inner sleeve. The factory bolt (or same size new one) will be the correct bolt for that hole. If that's the bolt you have, you should be good there as long as you (or a previous owner) didn't drill that bracket to accept a 7/16" bolt at some point.

Also, just for fun, check your coil springs. If th retainers on the lower coil buckets are no longer there, the coil spring can be shifting ever so slightly. It's not likely that it does it while steering in the driveway but stranger things have happened.

Usually a balljoint clunk won't happen in the driveway with slight steering adjustments unless the balljoints are ham, ham, hammered. Worn out ones will give you most fits under power while going over bumps, cracks, ruts..etc.

Attempting to "feel" the clunk is a good idea. It will get you in the general area of the issue but remember that clunks can translate well through steel. When you find the clunk, it will usually be a smokin' gun not and not a wild guess - well in my experience that's how it turns out even after getting frustrated and throwing parts at it in hopes that I'll guess right.

For others reading, most of these symptoms will also apply to a factory type jeep only you need to increase the scope of your search to include the steering itself and potentially suspension components. Remember that a front diff with a trac-bar (also known as a 5th link) will make the diff itself move while steering causing the other suspension components to shift slightly. Again this is unlikely going to result in a clunk while testing your steering in the driveway but it may cause one under power.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Let us know how it goes!

Matt

I also had popping when I turned my wheels on dry pavement, while setting still, or slowly moving. The problem turned out to be the track bar frame mount bottom two bolts. It seemed almost impossible to keep those bolts tight enough. When I modified my frames for the V8 install, I discovered the nuts for the lower bolts were a pressed in and tacked in place affair. These "nuts" actually popped out of their seats while removing hardware. I also found small cracks in the frame where the bolts attached. I replaced these bolts with regular 'ol 9/16 grade-8's when I rebuilt. It's hard to see in the following picture, but to the bottom right, you can see the start of the flange, and one of the two bolt holes. I think this an area that should be modified and reinforced if your running large tires, and a lift.

i had the same problem with mine. drove me insane for about a month and a half. i finally found out that the coil spring was rubbing my re track bar mount. my xj didnt come with the retainers on the bottom of the spring so i guess it just rotated in the bucket. just my .02

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roxj said:

i had the same problem with mine. drove me insane for about a month and a half. i finally found out that the coil spring was rubbing my re track bar mount. my xj didnt come with the retainers on the bottom of the spring so i guess it just rotated in the bucket. just my .02

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What works great for a spring retainer is a 1/2" conduit clamp found in the electrical section of your local hardware store. One bolt attaches it to the coil bucket (like the factory one did) and it's more than strong enought o handle the task. Give it a shot if you've not heard of it before.

Matt