rtchips

Hey everyone, I’ve been hesitant to post another thread on this issue but it seems I have not been able to come across my exact situation, so hear it is. 2018 jk. 3.5 lift. Dropped pitman arm and track bar mount, everything else is stock.

When I turn completely left the steering wheel has a pop sound that I feel in the steering wheel. When I check underneath it seems to almost hop at the draglink and pitman arm. Once this happens and I’m back driving down the road and I turn a slight right it pops back in to “normal steering”. There is also a 5 -10 degree in the turn where it doesn’t catch and it’s loose. Before that my steering wheel is off center. Once the normal steering returns the turning is tight until I make that complete left turn again. Almost like the draglink is too long? The draglinks are bad, I have replacements in the garage but I do not want to install as I am not 100% if that popping and steering wheel shift is problem. The lift came with the Jeep. I may want to do a flip and go back with stock pitman arm. Any help or direction to another thread on this will be greatly appreciated. I’ve been on this forum for about 8-9 years and it’s been my resource. One other thing, do old threads that I have posted become deleted at a certain point?

Sv_dude

Using a drop pitman arm puts a lot of stress on your gearbox. You likely have a worn sector shaft in your box, this could cause a little bit of a dead spot in your steering. Everyone here will tell you the same thing, get rid of your drop pitman arm and raise the track bar on your axle side.

You may be able to save your gearbox if it has play) with a sector shaft brace. Otherwise, you need another gear box.

rtchips

Thank you for the response. I believe this kit is from rough country. Check out the picture and let me know what you think? Do I need a higher track bar bracket? If that bracket works, go with adjustable track bar and drag link flip and replace pitman arm with OEM. It drives great with no bump steer now. I hope it will still be just as good.

Sv_dude

If you remove the drop pitman arm then you’ll need to get a raised track bar bracket.

The pic is fine, I would drop the dual stabilizer though. You really don’t need any but two is kinda silly and is more for looks than function.

rtchips

Ive only had this Jeep for half about 10 days so it is new to me. Still figuring out and listening to all the noises I hear. Some times I’ll just turn up radio instead. Lol. I thought that it looks like it has a raised track bar bracket already? If I add a flip and reduce the pitman arm length, wouldn’t the two still be parallel? Is that trackbar not already raised on axle side?
I’ll see if this gets rid of the clunk and dead spot in the steering. I’ll also look into adding the sector shaft brace.
Thanks in advance it’s been awhile since I worked on my last jk. This is a great forum where I have learned and still learning a lot!

resharp001

Yes, that TB bracket is already raised. Ideally you remove the drop pitman, go back to factory pitman arm, and you flip the DL to the top of the knuckle (as you noted in the original post) which will require a different DL. If you do not want to buy a different DL right now, then lower the axle side TB down to the factory location as well. I can't say that is going to have a real impact on your current issue at hand, but it would be a big improvement.

Those RC lifts are such a headache. One day one of us is going to finally just make a Rough Country sticky so we stop saying the same things over and over and over. That is not your fault by any means, and don't feel bad about posting the issue. A "hop" in the DL and/or pitman arm while at the end of the steering is not a common reaction we see. I'd have to agree that at first this seems likely to be steering box related. That pitman arm can only fit on the sector shaft in 4 positions, so it's a little hard to have that in the wrong position and since that is the case, it's a little hard to have the DL too long otherwise the steering wheel would be completely off-center.

As far as old threads go, I only see you've posted 3 times unless it was under a different member name. Old threads hang around unless there is some big purge which I think I've only seen happen 1 time in the past. The only other thing I can think of is for some reason your old post was "moderated" for some odd reason and needed approval for members to see it, but I don't recall seeing that either.

rtchips

Thanks for the reply. I will read up on steering shafts and pitman arm and it’s positions. When I drove home from work just now there is no issue. Like I mentioned before it only occurs after a full turn to the left, a clunk on the way back to centered steering. It only has that loose feeling once during the drive and only if I did the full left turn first. I can predict which corner it happens at when leaving my house. I will try to not fully crank to the left for awhile and see how that goes for now. I’ll update back when I replace the drag link an oem pitman arm. It may be a while..😒

Sv_dude

If your sector shaft bearings are bad enough, your sector shaft is sitting at an angle. That may make the sector shaft stay at that angle till it is full turn the other way. I’d have someone turn your wheel and you look at the sector shaft. If it moves a lot then you should address it pretty quick.

And as resharp said, flipping the drag link is a good solution. There’s plenty of kits at a reasonable price to do that. I used metalcloak and have no issues with it.

rtchips

I was able to take a video of under the Jeep. I wasn’t t able to upload it though and it was quite dark. What I can tell you though is when steering wheel turned left all the way the pitman arm pops up and then when as soon as I start to turn right the pitman arm drops back in to the normal position. I ordered a drag link flip and oem pitman arm earlier today and hoping that will only be the issue. I did come across another post with someone that had the same picture that mine looks like. The pitman arm nut has no threads on it and I can see the spindles on top of the pitman arm. I believe with the factory set up there are no spindles showing. The TRE on the drag link are so shot I hope my steering shaft didn’t take the hit. When I rotate the draglink up it just flips back down.

Regarding my older posts - I must have used a different name. I used this forum back in 13-14 when I had death wobble ....

Sv_dude

Any play in your steering system will give you a dead spot or equivalent play in your steering wheel. Be sure to replace any bad rod ends and torque your pitman arm jam nut down right to 180 ft lbs. When I installed my pitman arm I was lazy and didn’t use a torque wrench, I did use a 36” breaker bar and a crows foot and just got it super tight. I’ve been bending wrenches for long enough to know by force about where 175 ft lbs or 200 ft lbs is at, I felt confident doing that. Unless you feel the same, use a torque wrench. Also, throw a little bit of oil on the splines of the sector shaft when you put your pitman arm on, this will allow the pitman arm to raise up easier when torquing your pitman arm nut and give a more accurate torque on it.

After you do that and flip your steering, let us know if you have issues still.