I recently purchased this '05 wrangler sport. I knew before I bought it, it had death wobble,experienced it on test drive. I first replaced the steering dampened,because the one on there was totally shot and leaking oil. Then I searched out the culprit of the death wobble. Everything seemed tight except both hub bearings had excessive play in them. Replaced both hub bearings. No more death wobble. Now to the real problem. Bump steer! I did not do any of the lift and have no idea of the make of the parts. Front springs are 16" and rears are 12". There is a 1 1/2 square tube on top of the frame at the body mounts. Tires are 33 x 12.5. They were way over inflated to 42 psi. Knocked them down to 30, thinking on going down to 26. The geometry is an absolute train wreck. Whoever done this had no clue. Not only are the drag link and trac bar not parallel, they actually cross! I am looking for advice on how to fix this. What is out there in way of different bracket for the passenger side of the drag link? The pitman arm is factory, not dropped. The trac bar is not adjustable. I'm thinking I will most likely need an adjustable one though. Stabilizer arms are adjustable. Upper and lower control arms seem to be stock. Caster seems to be about 6 degrees negative. Toe is about 1/16" inward. I have attached pictures and sketch. Sketch is looking from front and dimensions are from level floor. Any help would be appreciated.
Bump steer—bad geometry
- Thread starter Tagower
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Holy crap. Thats a first. Whatever meth head owned that jeep before you put the trackbar in the steering stabilizer mount. The trackbar should bolt to the axle at the hole that is closer to the centerline of the axle tube below where it is mounted now.
That's jacked up. Some sort of hokey mount for the track bar and steering stabilizer. If you look closely, you can see the factory hole for the track bar and a relocation hole just below the drag link/tie rod connection. Can't tell what type of track bar that is or if it's stock.
If I had to guess, some bozo lifted it, didn't want to buy an adjustable track bar, so he moved the track bar up to the steering stabilizer mounting hole, and then fabbed up a redneck bracket to mount the stabilizer on 
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That's is unbelievable really.
A dropped pitman arm (O'Reilly's) would be a good option short term, while you decide what you want to do. Save the stock one.
You need to get a quality track bar and axle track bar mount, JKS sway bar links, A ZJ tie rod and likely all new ends and start evaluating bushings if you are going for great steering/handling, then check u joints , control arm bushings and all u joints.
The stock pitman arm will go back on when you.get the track bar mounted correctly.
That is a typical messed up lift..
A dropped pitman arm (O'Reilly's) would be a good option short term, while you decide what you want to do. Save the stock one.
You need to get a quality track bar and axle track bar mount, JKS sway bar links, A ZJ tie rod and likely all new ends and start evaluating bushings if you are going for great steering/handling, then check u joints , control arm bushings and all u joints.
The stock pitman arm will go back on when you.get the track bar mounted correctly.
That is a typical messed up lift..
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The track bar bracket on the axle looks sus. It is hard to tell, but it looks to me like someone cut off the front half of the TB bracket.
Thanks for everyone's input so far. I agree that the track bar mount is a cut up welded hot mess and must be replace with something. Thanks AndyG I am going to start with your advice and put a droped pitman arm on temporarily until I get a little more solid on my path forward. At least maybe I will be able to stay in my lane that way.
Are you trying to get this on/off the road as soon as possible?
If so I guess the dropped pitman arm would be the first step as long as what's left of the original steering stabilizer mount is still strong enough to keep the trackbar connected to the axle, if it ever was that strong.
If not, just get a new trackbar and new trackbar mount and do a little welding and wrenching to get it back together in a week or so.
If so I guess the dropped pitman arm would be the first step as long as what's left of the original steering stabilizer mount is still strong enough to keep the trackbar connected to the axle, if it ever was that strong.
If not, just get a new trackbar and new trackbar mount and do a little welding and wrenching to get it back together in a week or so.
So, in other words, saw a Skyjacker mess and copied it?If I had to guess, some bozo lifted it, didn't want to buy an adjustable track bar, so he moved the track bar up to the steering stabilizer mounting hole, and then fabbed up a redneck bracket to mount the stabilizer on
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You would think that I would learn by now to read the whole thing before I reply. Sorry about that.
Unbelievable. Good luck getting it right. Looks like you'll need to buy a new bracket to weld onto the axle.
You missed the early and late jounce bumpers in the bump stop cups.
I need a better picture for that one. It looks like there is enough there to just move the track bar back where it belongs but it is hard to tell.
It looks that way but depending on which pic, I think we are seeing the shock behind the spring since it doesn't appear to have a lower bump stop extension.
I am not in a huge hurry to get it on the road. Thinking about it I guess that putting on a drop arm just to take it back off and use it for a paper weight doesn't really make much sense. Any recommendation on TB mount for the axle considering it's lifted 4 inches?
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