Steering issues......

What will cause the steering to turn 2 turns to lock one way then 1.25-1.5 turns to lock the other? It started after I took the jeep in to get a alighnment.... Is it possiable to have the steering shaft on wrong? Or is it elsewhere? Plannign on a trip to the shop today sine I feel they caused it. There was not a change from b4 but I'm at 5.5" lift in the front. B4 it went ot get an alighnment it steered fine. Now right turn are non-existant.

Almost sounds like they recentered the steering wheel one turn or so off to make the steering wheel straight.

Now that is a possiability. The wheel was straight when I got it back but was cocked b4 going. (That was from when the locksmith made me keys!) Will mention that.

you sure are having a lot of issues with the ghost.

RichP said:

Almost sounds like they recentered the steering wheel one turn or so off to make the steering wheel straight.

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I went through this as well, my alignment guy centered my wheel and THEN did the alignment. He centered it by adjusting the link attached to the pitman arm, but if your steering wheel was off, mebe thats all they did.....?

So the drag link is where it is adjusted wrong then?

Ghost said:

So the drag link is where it is adjusted wrong then?

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Thats how the guy adjusted mine...I was only off by a 1/4 turn the the steering wheel or less. Did you replace your steering box or have the shaft disconnected at any time? The shaft may not be aligned right on the box, or even the pitman arm may not be on right.
My alignment guy is old school, uses manual tools and no computer, I tend to trust him a bit more than those kids and a highly technical rack machine.

Servey says! Bent drag link! How? I dont know! Where? Beats me! But got a new Moog one to put on!

Ghost said:

So the drag link is where it is adjusted wrong then?

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Yeah.

The sector shaft is indexed so you can't put the pitman arm on wrong, the the steering box shaft in indexed so you can't misalign it when installing the steering box. If the steering was cocked when you took it in, the tech undoubtedly adjusted it the wrong way, resulting in the steering box being one full turn off center internally.

Total turn with stock tires (stop-to-stop) should be 3-1/2 turns (unless you have the early off-highway option with 17:1 steering, in which case it's 4 or 4-1/2 turns). Yours adds up to 3-1/2 so I'm 99.9% sure that's the problem. Crawl under and look at the pitman arm. With the road wheels straight, the pitman arm should also be straight -- parallel to the vehicle centerline. I'll bet it's not.

Eagle said:

Yeah.

The sector shaft is indexed so you can't put the pitman arm on wrong, the the steering box shaft in indexed so you can't misalign it when installing the steering box. .

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Oh ye, I forgot about those damn flat spots on the input shaft. My old box had a big dead spot, when I belted off the steering wheel so it wouldnt move during the replacement, the steering shaft and the input shaft on the new box wouldn't line up. I spent about 20 mins pissing & moaning about that before I realized what I needed to do....just unbelt the steeringwheel and spin the shaft to align the flat spots.
My pitman arm and steerbox out put shaft are not indexed though. I had to count the total # of revolutions from lock to lock in order to make sure the new steer box was centered before I put the pitman arm back on...good thing I did, cuz the box was off by a quarter to half turn. This was after I had to wait a week for another pitman arm becuz the output shafts on the power boxes are BIGGER than on the manual boxes. What rocket scientist made that decision?