CitadelJeep04

When i get a chance at lunch I'll check to see if I get any play out of those ball joints. Anything over a millimeter in play is bad, right?

Also, I'll probably take of the JKS track bar up front and have my maintenance guys cut it down a little. If the axle isnt centered correctly, that will throw off the rest of the alignment right?

CitadelJeep04

I have another question about the steering. I've jacked it up several times offroad. To the point that I've come off a trail with the Jeep logo upside down... Could I have messed up the steering somehow? I need to check my steering box and pitman arm. It sounds wierd, but the way it pulls to the right, and the way the wheels are pointing to the left, it almost seems as if my draglink is too short. Does that make sense? I tried to twist it out longer last night, but my wheel was at 90* right, so I brought it back to center, but it still pulls HARD right. Can I disconnect the draglink at the knuckle, and then unscrew it a little to lengthen it?

jeepnick

yea, those underwear had to go.....

CitadelJeep04

I was thinking about the way my front wheels both point slightly left, and my front axle is off center about 3/4" to the passenger side, and my drag link being too short (didnt let enough out to compensate for lift?), and came up with this drawing. Excuse my crude MS Paint work, but is the idea plausible?



left side is everything straight and steering wheel centered.

Right side is how I think mine is set up. To explain, my axle is too far toward passenger side, but my steering wheel is centered. Now, assuming the draglink is the exact same length as it was before I put my lift on, could that mean that either I need to cut my trackbar to get the axle centered, or I need to disconnect the draglink at the knuckle and lengthen it a little to allow the wheels to go straight? If I'm looking at this right, the hard right pull i have would back up this theory.


I dunno. I need to fix my RockKrawler tie rod too I think. I can only adjust the passenger side end as the driver's side jam nut is frozen in place. I had a 2' break bar on it and I could not get it to break loose. Although, thats with me assuming both ends work with a right hand thread. Is that correct? And could the passenger side end being about 1/2" out further than the driver's side end cause the problems I'm having? In other words, to you have to adjust both ends of the tie rod for length?

CitadelJeep04

The TRE's i was talking about were only for the RK tie rod. I was talking more about sncrewing the axle side of the draglink from the turn buckle to basically make it longer without throwing the steering wheel off center. Doing that, in addtion to shifting the axle to the driver's side (which would throw off steering wheel too), that should make the front wheels straight. Unless I am seeing it wrong. Is the " re-centering gear" inside the steering pump enough to make it pull if its not straight? For example, if my splines in the steering shaft are twisted, the wheel may be straight, but the gears inside wouldnt be "centered", if that even matters.

Where's RedneckJeep, he knows all about alignments... I guess I'm thinking now, that, along with how my alignment isnt straight, could i have twisted the gears in the steering shaft? That would allow the steering wheel to be straight, but not the actual gears inside, but that would only matter if the steering pump is strong enough to make it pull when trying to "re-center" right? Or am I going crazy and thinking way too far in to this...

CitadelJeep04

[QUOTE=planman;1623778]With caster 5.7 degrees driver side and 5 degrees passenger side, your rig would pull very hard right. What you want is slightly more caster passenger side than driver side--i.e. 4.1 degrees driver side and 4.2 degrees passenger side.QUOTE]

So, since I had my passenger side LCA 1/8" longer, thats what was causing my right hand pull? I thought that setting the passenger side longer was supposed to correct the natural right side pull from the roads?

I have them both set equally at 23" now, so once I get the steering and toe figured out I'll adjust one or the other slightly.

CitadelJeep04

Ok, reset my LCA's to 23 1/8" driver's side which gives me 5.7* castor, and 23 1/16" on the passenger side, which should put me around 6.2* castor. The pull is slightly stronger with the passenger side lca shorter... My tire pressure is at 29 psi passenger side, and 28 drivers. Still have the pull. Had my brother cut 1/2" off the front JKS trackbar, so its centered within 1/16". The steering wheel is within a few degrees of perfect, but I can never get it perfect.

Last night I was looking through the steering shaft and box, and I noticed that I get at least a 1/8 turn of the shaft of play when I move it by hand. Is that normal? Or does it mean my steering shafts need to be replaced?

RCJeeper

Had a strong pull to the left. I messed around with control arm lengths so much so that I spent an afternoon making my upper CAs adjustable. I had the driver side LCA almost 3/4 longer than the passenger side to offset the pull. I finally gave up on that route when I could tell that no amount of CA setups really affected the pull for better or worse.

I was gong thru all this because my PC XMT were almost worn out and I didn't want to put a new set of tires on with a bad tire wear/pulling issue. Long story short, I replaced the tires because the shimmy I had (along with the pulling) turned into full blown death wobbles one afternoon. New tires, no more pull. I talked to a couple alignment shops when I was trying to figure out this pulling, and one tech said it might be a tire pull. I remember at the time thinking, "of course, and wouldn't you like to sell me a set." Well I owe him an apology, as that was the root of it. I still had a lingering DW issue, but I think I might have finally nailed it today. More road tests and then a report.