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Steering slopiness (any ideas)

penberth

NAXJA Forum User
Some people on this list might remember my steering box breaking from the frame. Happened over a year ago now. Anyways, ever since this happened, the steering has not be right. It seems sloppy / loose / dead at the center. For instance, I can be driving down a straight road, and can move the steering wheel about 2 inches off center and still be tracking straight. If I continue to push the wheel to the side, it will then start to turn the wheels. If seems like I have to turn the wheel quite a bit just to do certain things.....for example, if I was on the highway changing lanes, instead of just turning the wheel a little bit to perform the lane change, I will have to turn it quite a bit.

Also, the truck seems to exhibit wander. If I am going down a straight road, the truck will want to wander a little bit, and constantly require a little bit of correction. Also, when I turn corners, the steering doesn't seem to want to return to center.

When I had the steering box problem, I tried to cheap out and have the dealer put in an aftermarket box. Anyways, I drove the truck for about a week, and took it back. It was horrible....the steering was so fast and loose, it was undrivable in my opinion. So they put in a brand new Mopar box, and it was better, but it still isn't how it was before all this happened.

So what I am trying to figure out now is what do I have to do to get this corrected? Some ideas I have thought of are:
-New suspension bushings for the front end.
-Adjustable trackbar
-New HD steering shaft (http://www.4wd.com/newsite/shop/prod...il.asp?pid=893)
-New sterring gear box
-Currie HD Tie Rod System (http://www.4wd.com/newsite/shop/prod...asp?pid=CE9701)
-New vehicle....don't really want to do this as this truck is paid off.

But I don't know if any of these will fix it. So that is what I am hoping to get out of some of you guys.

Anyways, my truck is:
2000 Jeep Cherokee Sport
3" OME lift kit
Rubicon rims and tires
83.5K miles......

I like the truck and don't want to get rid of it. Just want to fix whatever the issue is and continue to drive this....

I have tried alignments, but it doesn't seem to work....


Bryan
00XJ
 
Several things to check....
Tie rods, track bar axle shaft u-joints, ball joints
Easy way to do a lot of this is have someone in the truck moving the steering wheel ever so slightly side to side. As steering wheel is turned, see if tires are following exactly...I'll guess not. My 90 XJ's problem was the track bar. Was real easy to see the pin moving in the frame while looking over the left front tire through the wheel well while moving steering wheel bakc and forth. Tie rod ends can be checked the same way. To check axle u-joints, jack up one front side and grab the wheel--as you rotate it, see that the stub axle and the main part of the axle are moving at exactly the same time. if not, look at the u-joint You will see movement in there. you can also look for kind of red, powdery 'goop' on the u-joints or tie rods. This is rust from the joint falling apart....Could be ball joints too.....
 
So I unbolted my skid plate, and started looking around. From what I can tell:

- Ball joints are fine.
-Track bar ends are fine. Both sides are tight.
-Steering shaft has no play, and when turned, it turns the gear. Other side of this, the pitman arm turns as expected with no delay.
-Steering gear box has no flex at the frame, and does not move at all.
-Axle u-joints are good. When jecked up, and I turn the wheel, the ujoints move without any hesitation/play.

I am not too sure how to tell if the tie rod ends are bad. How do I go about checking these? I didn't notice any unusual play in the ends when someone was turning the steering wheel.

When someone is turning the wheel, and I am watching the steering / suspension, I see a little play with the upper control arms. It appears that the push a little bit side to side. Would this be the bushings it the arms? I will double check to see if the arms are loose.

If this is the case, what is recommended for upper control arms? What brand, etc?
 
Just want to make sure I was clear on the axle u-joints. Jack up the car and rotate the wheel you just jacked up forewards and backwards; not the steering wheel. As you rotate it, see that the stub axle and the main part of the axle are moving at exactly the same time. As far as tie rods, if you didn't see any play when someone was turning the steering wheel, they are probably ok. Never did anything with control arms...Someone else will have to jump in here. But I think there is only 1 upper and 2 lower arms.
Make sure your helper is only moving the steering wheel slightly--I would say no more than 1-2 inches off center back and forth.
I just thought of something else---have you had your alignment checked recently? How about rotating the tires? I found that my wife's ZJ needs tires cross rotated every 5000 or so or you get that wandering feeling -especially off to the right (partially due to the crown in the road, but the tires do wear)
 
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Hey Tommy, thanks for helping me out.

When I jacked up the tire, I was rotating it by the wheel. They were moving at exactly the same time. So I think I am ok there. As for tire rotation, I haven't rotated them yet, but have traveled less than 2000 miles since I got them.
I got the alignment at the same time, so it has been less than 2000 miles since alignment. I have my alignment specs/report scanned in, but my website is down, so I have no place to store it for linking in email.

Another thing to note is that when I hit a bump / pothole in the road when traveling at at least 30-40mph, it feels like the whole front end is going to shake apart. Almost as if the shocks aren't doing anything / providing any dampening.

As far as steering stabilizer, I got an OME one at 51,000 miles, and I have about 83,000 now. So I would hope that is still good.

In fact, I am sure the stabilizer is ok because when I hit a bump, the front end does come under control without having to slow down. Before I replaced the stabilizer, I would have to slow down almost to 20 to get the wobble to stop.

Any ideas?
 
Check the track bar joints and that the upper track bar mounting bracket is tight to the frame. When I check over the front end, I have it on the ground and have someone crank the steering wheel back-n-forth while I inspect and put my hand on all the joints. I can usually feel any slop easier than see it.
 
had somewhat of the same problem as yours..just mine included that wonderful deathwobble everyone raves about.
anyway, i took it to a buddy of mine and we looked at it and the tie rod was bent, the track bar was loose on the axel side..basicly new parts were required....RE extreme duty track bar and bracket, currie heavy duty tj/xj steering set up....i recomend the currie steerng for the price and how strong it is, its a nice looking setup...that pretty much stopped my wondering jeep while i would be driving down bumpy roads...still has a slight death wobble..most likely due to a bad front tire.
hope you get your ride fixed.
 
Have you gotton anywhere with this? I've got the same smytoms as you even the same wheels :p So far I've replaced the track bar, TRE at the pitman arm and adjusted the Caster.
 
97XJ_Sport said:
Have you gotton anywhere with this? I've got the same smytoms as you even the same wheels :p So far I've replaced the track bar, TRE at the pitman arm and adjusted the Caster.

I am making some progress. For me, I have checked a lot of the parts that people are talking about on here. From what I can tell, all my suspension components are tight and in spec. A buddy of mine that was a Ford technician drove my truck the other day and he had two ideas. One was the ball joint sticking. He said that ball joints not only keep the wheel straight up and down, but could be sticking side to side. So he had me jack the truck up, pull the wheel off of one side, disconnect the steering linkage from that side. So now the wheel end will turn left and right independently of the steering wheel and the other side. He said that if I felt the wheel sticking at all during the movement, then the ball joint was bad. Anyways, I did this for both sides, and they moved correctly and freely...no binding.

So the other option that he said was that the backlash in the steering gear is set too tight. In other words, the steering wheel is sticking. If I am driving down the street, and I turn the wheel to the left and let go of the wheel....the truck will continue to go left until I manually correct it.

So I want to check the steering gear backlash, but I ran out of time today. I am going to try and check that this week sometime. If not, I will check it over the weekend.

97_XJSport....just to give you a little bit of history...At around 71K miles, my steering box broke from the frame. I am not too sure what caused this, but it didn't damage the frame rail...Long story short, after the dealer replaced the gear box, it has never been right. I haven't replaced any of the steering components yet as everything seems correct. So I am going to try the gear box adjustment first. Let me know how you make out.
 
Ok, I got a little farther today with this issue. I did some more digging, and found that my track bar does have play in it. It is on the suspension end, not the frame end. I was going to take it off today and check out the bushing, but couldn't get the bolt free. After trying for a little bit, I noticed that there is play in it. It must have been rusted up tight, so that when I grabbed it prior to this, it didn't move. Probably only moved when I hit some pot holes, etc.

Needless to say, I have a JKS adjustable track bar on order with Quadratec. I should have it on Wednesday Sept 6/ Thusday Sept 7. My question is this:
Does it come with all hardware to install it? All the pictures i've seen of it only show it with one bolt. I am guessing that I am going to have to snap the bolts to get the old one off. They are rusted on there pretty good. In anticipation of this day, I have been soaking them with PB Blaster....but thay have 5-6 years of New York rust on them. :(
 
Just wanted to let you all know that I got the old trackbar off without too much trouble. All I can say is that a Hi-Lift jack handle, PB Blaster, and a pickle fork were my best friends during this endevour. I got the new JKS bar today, and it went in without much trouble at all. From what I can tell, it mostly cleared up my return-to-center steering problem. I have an appointment with Sears to have them look over my alignment again. I looked at the alignment that they did back in April, and the bastiches never checked the caster at all. So I will let you all know how that goes. Thanks for everything....
 
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