Bad Steering Box?

What are the symptoms? I am trying to narrow this steering problem down for good. My Jeep just takes bumps on the road excessively hard. It nearly rattles the entire interior. No death wobble just extremely rough. Actually its almost like the bumps aren't absorbed at all, and I can feel all the way through the steering wheel which seems to be loose. 90% of everytime I turn there is a loud pop from the driver's side. 3/4 TRE's have been replaced, new JKS trackbar, tie rod and lower RE CA's. I have checked both ends of the Track bar and they are fine. How do I know if the steering box is bad?

i give up, im at aaa auto service in cleveland on 25th street monday thru friday 8-6pm. we can handle anything. im doing my regear to 456's there this summer.

Hahaha holy shit, I knew you would be the first to respond. I about just fell out of my damn chair. I was seriously thinking that the whole time I was typing that. Consider me their first thing in the morning.

ill be in cleveland allday.

I have been having an almost identical set of problems. I still had the stock upper arms and by chance, picked up a close to new set of RE non adjustable uppers. I installed them and immediately my popping sound when away as well as this annoying "rattling" sound I got every time I hit a bump.

I need to go back and really look at the old stock arms to see if there were any cracks or something wrong with them but I was VERY surprised to see the new upper arms solve this ongoing problem. They would have been the last things I would have changed and just lucked out that I did them sooner then later.

Good luck.

Jester99 said:

What are the symptoms? I am trying to narrow this steering problem down for good. My Jeep just takes bumps on the road excessively hard. It nearly rattles the entire interior. No death wobble just extremely rough. Actually its almost like the bumps aren't absorbed at all, and I can feel all the way through the steering wheel which seems to be loose. 90% of everytime I turn there is a loud pop from the driver's side. 3/4 TRE's have been replaced, new JKS trackbar, tie rod and lower RE CA's. I have checked both ends of the Track bar and they are fine. How do I know if the steering box is bad?

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Just by reading your post it looks like you already found the problem. If the "bumps aren't absorbed at all" maybe you need some new shocks. The pop while turning could be the track bar mount holes are no longer round. Did you examine them when you replaced the track bar and are its mounting points all tight? Have you checked both the motor and tranny mounts for cracking? I guess as already mentioned the bushings in the uppers could also contribute to the problems, but I don't think they could be blamed for all the symptoms.