doctordel

After recentering the wheel after installing lift, when I pulled out of the driveway and drive straight, the wheel is no longer centered. Strangely, during around town driving, I have noticed that the wheel may need to be turned and held to the right or the left in order to go straight. Literally, I will be driving down a straight street and the wheel will be about 10 degrees to the right. Then, I will make a u-turn to the left and when I drive down the same stretch of straight road I am holding the wheel 10 degrees to the left. This has been going on since the lift was installed.

I have a 4dr with a RC 4" lift, adj FLCAs, 1" body lift, 35" ProComp AT, RC single steer stabilizer. Jeep has ~8000 miles on it.

The FLCAs were installed with the adj end at the chassis (not the axle) and elbow pointing out, per manufacturer instructions; this seems to be contradictory to the arrangement outlined in WOL's write up for this lift kit but I don't think we used the same exact LCAs on our respective rigs so I figured I would follow the directions provided with the LCAs

Any thoughts?

wayoflife

if i could guess, you have an issue with your steering stabilizer. specifically, the symptoms you described sounds as if you have a bent shaft on the stabilizer. this would force the steering wheel to sit on one side or the other of center. however, assuming everything is new and that your stabilizer has never been hit, could be your tie rod is bent and enough so that your stabilizer is getting hung up on something like the track bar mount. sorry, hard to say for sure without seeing it myself. got any pics?

doctordel

does this help?

wayoflife

sorry, i can't tell for sure looking at that pic but i would definitely give it a look. have someone turn your steering wheel left and right while you examine it and see if it's getting hung up on anything.

doctordel

Nothing gets hung up. Nothing rubbing. Nothing seems loose. All my TRE are still pretty new. My LCAs are at 23 3/16" on each side for about +7.5 degrees of caster. Honestly, I noticed this problem the first time I drove the Jeep after installing the lift, and this was before I installed the steering stabilizer.

I thought I could try recentering the wheel again but this didn't work. Still have to hold wheel right (sometimes) or left (sometimes) to go straight, and it seems to favor the side that the wheel was last turned to...Make a left-wheel is then off center to the left; make a right, wheel is off center to the right.

Jusaplaya

Mine rough country stabilizer got hung on the tie rod. It grinded down the bolts for i noticed. I repositioned it and put it all back. I got like an inch of clearance between the screws on the bracket and the tie rod. I have same problem. That is the best I could get. Mine has a dent in the can on the stabilizer also. It seems to pull and push out fine. My steering does the same thing.

wayoflife

well, if your absolutely sure it's not your steering stabilizer, did you install a new dropped pitman arm with your lift? could be that it's loose. now, this can be hard to tell for sure being that the nut needs to be torqued to 180 ft. lbs. and, i can tell you that the main manufacturer of just about all dropped pitman arms for everyone made a bunch with splines with loose tollerances. i had gone through 3 before getting one that works pretty good. if the splines on yours are off, it will cause bad steering. one way to tell if this is the case is to have someone turn your steering wheel left and right all the way over and if the pitman arm moves or rocks in place, you have one that has bad splines. the pitman arm should not shift, rock or move at all on the sector shaft.

doctordel

Playa commisurates; thought I may be the only one with this problem; glad I'm not.

I used the dropped pitman arm that came with the kit, following your directions in the write-up section (indescribably better than the kit directions, BTW-thank you doesn't begin to cut it.) It was a pain to get on so I assume the tolerances are okay. I will check this later today, though...

zoeydad

The only thing I can think of is to make sure the clamps on the drag link adjuster are completely tight.

Dr.McNinja

When this happened to me, it turned out to be the track bar bracket was loose. Easiest way to check is to have someone turn the wheel while you watch the steering components. You'll see pretty quick what is out (ie what moves when the tires don't).