Crown control arms

RedTJ

RedTJ

TJ Enthusiast
Joined
Dec 21, 2016
Messages
100
Location
Suffolk, VA, United States
I began getting death wobble when I hit bumps at highway speeds. I replaced the front track bar which solved the death wobble, but I still got a shimmy when I hit bumps on the highway. The tires are well balanced and the Jeep does not vibrate. Based on the age of the Jeep and what I have read on this forum, I decided to replace the front control arms. I ordered a Crown front control arm kit that included both upper and lowers from Morris4X4.

Two weeks ago I replaced the lowers and immediately noticed a big improvement. The shimmy was almost completely gone. This last weekend, I replaced the uppers and noticed that the shimmy had returned and was much worse than before.

One detail that may be important. When I was torqueing the upper control arm on the driver's side, the torque wrench never clicked and I kept tightening. It didn't feel all that tight, but the control arm bolt on the axle side with the weird head snapped. I replaced it with an equivalent metric bolt and nut that fit snuggly through the bushing on the axle and the holes in the control arm.

This morning I crawled underneath it hoping that maybe I did something stupid like forgetting to tighten one of the control arm bolts, but no such luck. Everything is tight so I picked my old control arms out of the garbage. Even at 15 years old they seem to be better than the Crowns.

I'm wondering if anybody has any experience with stuff from Crown either good or bad and any ideas on what, if anything, I may have screwed up.

2002 Wrangler X, 4.0L, auto trans. This Jeep is completely stock. No body or suspension lift. Even wear on tires and drives straight.
 
Crown stuff is usually pretty good. I don't have crown control arms but I've had parts from them and haven't had any issues and have been satisfied. Couldn't tell ya what you messed up but I bent both my lower front mopar ones on some rocks. Wished I had skids for th control arm mounts about 3 seconds later.

As long as you used a 10.9 or grade 8 bolt that was the same size there shouldn't be any issue replacing it. I've done the same thing and had no issues.

I'm getting really bad shaking of the steering wheel and dash after lifting, mml, body lift and adding adjustable track bars. I was told to have tires balance. Apparently it is easy to knock them out of balance. I'd reccomend to do the same. Having mine done tomorrow :) hoping it doesn't shake anymore it's annoying.
 
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It will be the weekend before I can look at it again. It seems like the most sensible thing to do is put the old uppers back in since that was the last thing I "fixed" before the problem started.
 
RedTJ said:
It will be the weekend before I can look at it again. It seems like the most sensible thing to do is put the old uppers back in since that was the last thing I "fixed" before the problem started.
Click to expand...
That's where I would start.

I'm assuming when you replaced the bolt you Snapped, you were able to torque it down to spec?
 
Yes, but I'm wondering how good my torque wrench is because I never heard it click before the bolt snapped. I'll use my spare one when I get around to looking at it.
 
Well I put the original upper control arms back in. BTW, I learned that the job goes much smoother when the vehicle is on the ground rather than being jacked up. While I was under there, I retorqued the lowers. The Jeep does a little shimmy when I hit bumps at 60, but I notice that it shimmys like the tires are out of balance. I guess that's the next step.

The other thing I noticed when I was under there was that my muffler has a hole in it and the hangers are broken so the tail pape has a lot of movement. I grabbed the tail pipe and shook it, and noticed that the transfer case shakes along with it. When I looked closer, it appears that the rear transmission mount is completely cooked. Everything moves like it's not even connected to it.

I've been working on cars for 35 years, and I would like to believe I'm fairly good at it. My suspicion is that the transmission mount is trashed and that this is a fairly simple job but requires removal of the skid plate which needs to come off anyway to replace the muffler.

If I'm barking up the wrong tree, I would appreciate any guidance anyone could offer.
 
I just put all new Crowns (uppers and lowers; fronts and backs). Other than missing parts from the order, and having to wait another while to get the missing parts it went ok. I didn't read the torque right when I was putting it together. It is something like 135 on the frame and 85 on the axle, but I accidentally torqued both to 135 on one lower before I noticed my error, I didn't go back and correct it, but it seems ok to me. I replaced my old ones that have 174K miles on them so they made a world of difference for me.
 
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RedTJ said:
Well I put the original upper control arms back in. BTW, I learned that the job goes much smoother when the vehicle is on the ground rather than being jacked up. While I was under there, I retorqued the lowers. The Jeep does a little shimmy when I hit bumps at 60, but I notice that it shimmys like the tires are out of balance. I guess that's the next step.

The other thing I noticed when I was under there was that my muffler has a hole in it and the hangers are broken so the tail pape has a lot of movement. I grabbed the tail pipe and shook it, and noticed that the transfer case shakes along with it. When I looked closer, it appears that the rear transmission mount is completely cooked. Everything moves like it's not even connected to it.

I've been working on cars for 35 years, and I would like to believe I'm fairly good at it. My suspicion is that the transmission mount is trashed and that this is a fairly simple job but requires removal of the skid plate which needs to come off anyway to replace the muffler.

If I'm barking up the wrong tree, I would appreciate any guidance anyone could offer.
Click to expand...

Yes, always keep it on the ground when swapping out control arms. It's so much easier than trying to do it when it's jacked up. Been there, done that, learned my lesson!

I think you're right on about the transmission mount. It sounds like that thing needs to be replaced ASAP, and it's not that difficult of a job to do either.

Make sure to have those tires balanced as well!
 
Well, it looks like there's trouble in paradise. I was removing the skid plate to change the transmission mount and two of the bolts on the driver's side came loose and just started spinning. One did it on the right side as well. When I stuck my finger in the hole in the frame, I felt lots of junk. I am hoping that the Jeep experts will tell me otherwise, but I think I have some serious frame problems. I noticed a bit of rot through on the front right by the lower control arm mount and was hoping that was an isolated problem, but it seems it isn't

So I'm thinking of fully disclosing the problem and selling as is. This is an unmodified Jeep with no known accident damage with a newly remanufactured 4.0L engine (I have the documentation) and an automatic. The interior is clean and in really good condition. It also has rust through underneath the doors and the engine light is on (P0455). I smoked it and there's smoke coming from above the fuel tank.

The vehicle has about 172,000 miles on it with about 11,000 on the engine. It's a hard top with full doors. It has working AC and heat, working radio with CD player and cruise control. The paint still shines but is typical for it's age with cracks in the hood and rock chips on the grill. The tires are Firestone house brand 31s with between 8 and 9 32s of an inch of tread left.

What could I get for it? If it matters, I'm in Virginia.
 
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Man, that's tough accept but probably the best decision. Frame repair, unless done right, is often just a temporary fix.


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