Hey Ferm, got a Jeep question

[spareparts]

My 96 2wd Cherokee is driving a little funny. I just had new tires put on it and they did an alignment( the old tires were so bad I couldn't tell if anythign was wrong). I give the tire shop the benefit of doubt that they did a proper alignment based on my past experiance with them. The probelm is the front end seems a little "loose"( is this normal for these cars?). It wants to dart and follow the grooves in the pavement. If I slam on brakes, it darts back and forth( either side). Under normal firm braking, it stays straight so I don't think its the brakes(just did them, new rotors, calipers, and pads). I jacked up the front end and put a pry bar on everything I could push against, the tie rod ends, drag link, and track bar seem OK, no signs of the ball joints or steering arm being worn. The car does have 140K miles on it. the *only thing I found was the controll arm bushings seem a little soft, I could move the arms around( no a lot of movement, but they would move) with the pry bar with out a lot of effort. Figured I'd start with putting new bushings in the controll arms, any recomendaton on bushings? Would pst or urathane be too harsh? Or do you have abetter idea?

[THEFERMANATOR]

On that era JEEP, sway bar bushings were a problem. But your describing a track bar problem. The first check I always do is to get a helper, have them sit in the JEEP and rock the wheels back and forth fairly quickly. Watch all of the front end components while doing this. Pay espescially close attention to the track bar where it attachs to the frame by the pitman arm, that joint is a known issue with all of the JEEPS that used a tie rod end style attatchment(CHRYSLER knew it was an issue and fixed it on the later GRAND CHEROKEE's). Also check the steering box for play, it doesn't take much to make these things wander. Then take and jack one side of the front axle up at a time to get about 2 inch's of air under the tire. Then take a pry bar and pry the tire upwards, and then pry by the ball joints outwards. This will show you ball joint movement.

Those bushings your talking about are a tru PITA to change. You can go with the ENERGY SUSPENSIONS ones, but they are still not easy to replace. They should have some movement in the though, and they rarely ever fail(I never replaced a set that needed to be changed). My 88 CHEROKEE I'm curerently driving still has the factory originals in it.

And as for your alignment shop, I hope they did ya right. But most of them have the green is good mentality(if the specs fall in the green, who cares). And the factory specs would cause problems to begin with. They put alot of toe in in the front ends to try and help them go straight. Alignment specs should be .05-.08 toe in, and as close to 0 as possible on camber. Caster is the highly overlooked item on these that causes MOST of the front end issues. The caster should be 6.5 with a cross caster of .5 or less. Caster is the main culprit in the death wobble in all JEEPS. Check your front end over and get back to me.

[Franco]

See if it has bad steering dampner, that a horizintaly moubted shock absorber attched to the drag link in your steering. I worked at a Jeep dealership for 11 yrs in service and we replaced a bunch of them.

[spareparts]

thanks for the input, I'll check it out this weekend. BTW on a straight axle, how do you set the caster?

[Franco]

I beleive it has a solid front axle and unequal length control arms and coil springs. If caster is equal from side to side dont worry, and it should never change unless it is bent or twisted.

Aw man......I was hoping to see the pink Jeep.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Steering dampers are not really all that neccesary on the XJ's at stock height, I've run many of em without em without issue. If you were having issues with the wheel vibrating under braking, or jerking over bumps I would say damper. With 140K on the clock, I'm betting steering box or track bar. The wonderful GM SAGINAW box is infamous at 125K+ miles to get loose and sloppy. You can adjust them slightly, but most of the time not enough. Also check your intermediate shaft for slop(the one that connects the box and column). The XJ's normally didn't give issue here, but the YJ's did.

Here's a few pics of the caster adjustments. You use these to get the caster close, but cross-caster can only be set with ball-joints. Pardon the grease and dirt, I run the SH!T out of my JEEP ;D.
Here's the lower control arm attatching point vehicle side.

Backside where the 2 bolts that hold the shims in place.

And an underside shot of the shims.


And to satisfy RB, here's PINKY.

if i tighten you up gettin into 3, ur gonna be way to tight gettin off of 4. we'll just take a pound outta the right rear to help ya roll thrue the center and get a good run off. if that dont work we'll pull a spring rubber under the next caution. whats ur temp reading? maybe we can put a little more tape on the nose when the sun goes down...

[Skools_Dual]

lol great one Twist

samething on my gas Tahoe and on both my Jeeps at the 120k mile range all were the steering damper, the jeeps were a GC 1998 and a C 1992

[spareparts]

twisted, you forgot "wedge"