I hope you guys can shed some light on my problems after the installation of my lift yesterday. My friends and I(I have no mechanical ability whatsoever) installed the OME 2" spring lift with JKS front/rear track bars. I didn't even get out of the neighborhood and my ESP/BAS lights popped on and took over. ESP is coming on every 25-30' whether I'm turning or not. Sometimes when I brake, it feels like the brakes are failing and it feels similar to when you hit your brakes on ice and you hear that crunching/grinding sound and feel. I hope this has nothing to do with them taking the caliper? off to relieve tension on my brake lines. Also, my steering wheel is way off-center. I'm talking the jeep on my center is upside down when my tires are centered as close as I can tell and the steering is so loose I will not even attempt to drive it on the hwy. I tried to recenter my steering wheel and thought I had it until I got back from test drive and it's still way off. I'm going to take it in for an alignment, but I'm a little worried something is bent or seriously jacked up. Please enlighten me

 

If you don't center your steering wheel your ESP will kick in. I bet it's going crazy with your wheel upside down when you are going straight!

Also, check the torque and tighten the nut on your trac bars.

 

On a 2 inch lift you really should not have needed that much in the way of track bar adjustment, but if you installed new track bars, are they adjustable? They may be way out. Measure how your axles are centered under the Jeep.

Your steering wheel should not be that far off either. Your systems are going nuts because the steering wheel is so far off. Something is bad wrong here, because ona 4 inch lift, I was only about a quarter turn off, and the adjustment was easily fixed.

If your steering is loose, you got an even bigger problem.

Again, a 2 inch ift is not that much, and your brake lines should not have been that tight. I think that something is seriously wrong, and you may have parts way out of adjustment, or maybe even the wrong parts altogether.

If I were you, I would start over. With only 2 inch springs, you should be able to install the springs only and drive it ok. Sounds like several things wrong and it could be dangerous.

Good luck....

 

It ussually takes two or three test drives to be able to re-center your steering wheel right. Took me three. Re-center looks good, take a drive , still off, repeat process. Also you may have re-centered it a full turn in the wrong direction.

 

That's what I'm scared of. The lift resulted in about 3.5" of lift. I got the HD kit. The track bars are adjustable but I don't really recall them measuring anything. I think they eyeballed it and matched it up to the stock bar. I really hope nothing is seriously damaged b/c I prefer to dump money in to better my jeep and not repair it. This may be a dumb question but is it at all odd that my friend stood on my axle to push it down far enough so they could pop the spring out? I'm a noob, but I just don't know if forcefully pushing the axle down with 200+ lbs of weight is the best for it.

 

Look for the write-up on re-centering your steering wheel, I think you may be confusing your tires just being straight and steering wheel off to be ok.

 

Your track bars will need to be adjusted, they will end up being longer than stock. Doesn't sound like anything major, just some fine tuning to your trk bars and get your steering wheel re-centered correctly.

 

If you are really careful and take your time you can get it straight fairly easily. I pulled my Jeep straight into my work area then eyeballed down at the side of the wheels and fenders and made the slight adjustments in the wheels till both left and right looked the same. Then got under the Jeep and adjusted the steering wheel till it was centered - I also used a level to help check the steering wheel (my working surface is level and I sighted on the lines on the wheel). In any case, if you don’t’ get it right, just note about how far it is off and re-adjust when you get back.

Do you wheels/tires look centered? If not, your trac bars probably weren’t adjusted properly.

Did you guys use a torque wrench at all? If not, I bet your trac bars aren’t tight enough. Did someone tighten the jam nut?

 

When i installed my 2.5 inch lift i had a similar problem with the esp but recentering it works.
Also make sure your shocks are the right length for your lift. I was sent shocks that were too short and my truck went nuts a few times and when i figured out whats wrong and got the new ones no problems so far...

 

I just went out and checked the steering to see if may over adjusted the wheel and my tires are look straight. I turned my wheel exactly 1.5 revolutions both ways so maybe it's off by a little and more of a trackbar issue. I didn't see any torque wrench used yesterday, just a pneumatic wrench and everything was tightened by hand with exception to the wheels.