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Pitman Arm? What?

N

Nuthinfancy

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Michigan
Just did a 4.5" lift. Now when I drive I only have half of a right turn, it doenst go all the way to the right. My left turn is fine. Would it be the pitman arm not travleing far enough to provide me with a full right turn or what?
 
No. Something is adjusted very very wrong. :) Did you do an alignment after the lift?
 
Did you center your steering before adding the lift? Did ya change pitman arms? If so did ya mark it? Could have moved on ya when ya was installing the lift. You should get 2.5 turns of the wheel both ways. Is your axle centered?
 
did you adjust your track bar after the lift? Mine was way off!
 
I did the alignment. I did not center my steering during the lift. I did not change pitman arms, its the stock arm. I adjusted the track bar so the bolt would fit in the hole but they didnt give me any specs that it should be adjusted to.
 
Here we go again
ColoradoRaptor said:
Did you center your steering before adding the lift?

Why would you do that?

Did ya change pitman arms? If so did ya mark it? Could have moved on ya when ya was installing the lift.

Its indexed!

You should get 2.5 turns of the wheel both ways. Is your axle centered?
Click to expand...
 
RCP Phx said:
Here we go again
Click to expand...

Not you again! :guitar: Just refering to a removed pitman arm for god sake. Have a nice day:wave1:
 
Last edited:
rocknxj said:
Remember, all posts must be filtered through the RCP Phx approval site before submission.
Click to expand...

I will keep that in mind...:gee: I'm just a ignorant redneck!.............:roflmao:
 
The pitman arm is indexed. You CAN'T put it on wrong unless you're a REAL moron. The sleeve on the draglink likely needs to be turned to center your steering wheel. From what you described (Full turn left but not right) you need to turn it so that it lengthens your draglink. I would suggest looking into some kind of steering. Look at the Rugged Ridge stuff. It's fairly inexpensive.
 
Nuthinfancy said:
I did the alignment. I did not center my steering during the lift. I did not change pitman arms, its the stock arm. I adjusted the track bar so the bolt would fit in the hole but they didnt give me any specs that it should be adjusted to.
Click to expand...

There's the problem. If you just adjusted the trackbar until the bolt went in the hole, your Jeep was probably shifted way to one side because there was nothing to keep the axle centered. Look at how much of the tire is sticking out on both sides and adjust your trackbar to center the axle. Hint..A ratchet strap hooked to another vehicle works pretty good for moving the front back and forth when your trying to center it.
 
Just curious, to the original poster: when you say you aligned it, you did more than just center the steering wheel with the drag link sleeve, right? With a 4.5" lift you'll pick up over an inch of toe-in.
 
JJacobs said:
Just curious, to the original poster: when you say you aligned it, you did more than just center the steering wheel with the drag link sleeve, right? With a 4.5" lift you'll pick up over an inch of toe-in.
Click to expand...

I dont know, I didnt align it, the shop did, so I would imagine so. I checked if the axle is centered, it looks to me like its pretty damn centered so...
 
jakec said:
There's the problem. If you just adjusted the trackbar until the bolt went in the hole, your Jeep was probably shifted way to one side because there was nothing to keep the axle centered. Look at how much of the tire is sticking out on both sides and adjust your trackbar to center the axle. Hint..A ratchet strap hooked to another vehicle works pretty good for moving the front back and forth when your trying to center it.
Click to expand...

If you disconnect the T-Bar and bounce the front end a few times it should auto-center, no?
 
TunaSoda said:
If you disconnect the T-Bar and bounce the front end a few times it should auto-center, no?
Click to expand...

not really no. It tends to wander a little to one side or the other - mine goes towards the passenger side.

I center mine visually. I hook the track bar up, bounce it a few times, and just look at it for a few minutes. If one wheel sticks out further than the other, i adjust the trackbar a couple of turns.

Have someone hop in and turn the steering wheel while your trying to line up the trackbar hole - it will move the jeep over the axle, assuming the weight of the rigs is on the wheels.
 
JJacobs said:
Just curious, to the original poster: when you say you aligned it, you did more than just center the steering wheel with the drag link sleeve, right? With a 4.5" lift you'll pick up over an inch of toe-in.
Click to expand...

My allignment shop did that as well. He told me that he adjusted it that way because the draglink wasn't long enough. He didn't feel comfortable with adjusting the sleeve so far that there were fewer threads in contact. After all that I spent nearly 1500 bucks on steering and then took it back to him. Everything is lined up great.

As far as centering the axle, you should be able to take a tape measure or yard stick and measure from the outside edge of the unibody rail to the outside edge of your tire on both sides and get it really close. Thats what I do anyways. I hope the frame rails are symetrical! lol
 
If your alignment shop didnt re-center your steering wheel for you when they did the alignment, I'd go back there and punch them in the face....

then i'd ask for my money back, and go to a different alignment shop and have them double check everything, b/c if the first place couldnt even re-center your steering wheel, god knows what they did to everything else....
 
My shop didn't center the wheel on purpose. He told me that he didn't feel comfortable with turning the draglink out so far and didn't charge me for what he had done since it wasn't right. I came back after I had replaced all my steering and he did a great job... and STILL didn't charge me because my uppers weren't adjustable and he couldn't get my caster right... so after next week I'm going back with my new adjustable arms and finally going to pay him once for 3 allignments...

Now since he has only 4.5 inch of lift then I don't see why he can't get it closer.

Original Poster: Go turn your wheel so that the tires are straight then get out and see where the pitman arm is... I would bet that it's point ingtowards the passenger door. It should be parallel with the frame rails, pointing straight back.
 
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