Front tire wear / steering help

DropTopDon

TJ Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 7, 2019
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642
Location
VA
Recently noticed that my front tires are cupping HORRIBLY. I am running 33x12.50x15 BFG km3's. The rear tires are all evenly wearing and look much newer than the front ones do. The set has probably 9-10k miles on them. They were originally on my TJ and I rotated them at the 6k mile mark. At that point there was no irregular tire wear. Since then I got rid of the TJ and purchased an LJ and swapped all the parts. Since they have been on the LJ, they have started to wear badly on the front and started to howl and cup. I did align the tires when I first put them on. I can tell now that it is not aligned anymore because the jeep will pull to the right and the steering wheel is not center. Also sometimes when turning the steering wheel I hear a loud pop noise. Nothing is rubbing so I'm not sure what the noise is. Maybe a bad track bar bushing or ball joint? I am also on stock control arms right now so could it be improper caster?(2.5 in suspension lift). I needed a beefier tie rod anyways so I bought the ZJ tie rod and am going to re-align and check all the components when it comes but I was wondering what things specifically I should focus on. I will also probably rotate the tires so they don't cup any further but I really don't want the current rear tires to move to the front and start cupping as well.
 
Recently noticed that my front tires are cupping HORRIBLY. I am running 33x12.50x15 BFG km3's. The rear tires are all evenly wearing and look much newer than the front ones do. The set has probably 9-10k miles on them. They were originally on my TJ and I rotated them at the 6k mile mark. At that point there was no irregular tire wear. Since then I got rid of the TJ and purchased an LJ and swapped all the parts. Since they have been on the LJ, they have started to wear badly on the front and started to howl and cup. I did align the tires when I first put them on. I can tell now that it is not aligned anymore because the jeep will pull to the right and the steering wheel is not center. Also sometimes when turning the steering wheel I hear a loud pop noise. Nothing is rubbing so I'm not sure what the noise is. Maybe a bad track bar bushing or ball joint? I am also on stock control arms right now so could it be improper caster?(2.5 in suspension lift). I needed a beefier tie rod anyways so I bought the ZJ tie rod and am going to re-align and check all the components when it comes but I was wondering what things specifically I should focus on. I will also probably rotate the tires so they don't cup any further but I really don't want the current rear tires to move to the front and start cupping as well.

Check your ball joints, and do a steering test (one person moving the steering wheel back and forth while you look at each component for play. That's where I'd start anyway, before doing all the alignment stuff. Replace all the defective parts and then do your alignment.
Ray
 
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If you grab the drag link or tie rod and shake vigorously, do you hear any clunking or have any play? I had bad wear on the outside of my tires, as well as having a clunk that I thought was coming from the tie rod end ball joint. But when I took the end off the knuckle, I actually realized the adjustment sleeve was loose, allowing rotational movement of the tie rod when not necessary.

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Did a dry steering test and didn’t see any play in the tie rod or drag link end but I did notice this slop on my track bar. Does it just need to be tightened or is the bushing bad? I believe I had it torqued to spec
 
How about showing us a pic of this cupping that's happening on those front tires ? Both sides.
 
Did a dry steering test and didn’t see any play in the tie rod or drag link end but I did notice this slop on my track bar. Does it just need to be tightened or is the bushing bad? I believe I had it torqued to spec

Try tightening first.
That (spherical) bushing should be straight up and down, tight to the bracket.

Did you swap that from the other jeep?
 
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Try tightening first.
That (spherical) bushing should be straight up and down, tight to the bracket.

Did you swap that from the other jeep?

That's what I thought, will try tightening again when I replace tie rod tomorrow. Also yes the track bar was from the old jeep.
 
There should be zero movement in your track bar. Can’t believe that is not causing some drivability issues.
 
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There should be zero movement in your track bar. Can’t believe that is not causing some drivability issues.

My thought exactly- has to be it seems- looks like death wobble waiting to happen.

That johnny joint in it needs rebuilt bad. The mount bolt is captive and tightening the nut will not affect the bushing.

On the cupping-

You need to check-

- your unit bearings-

- your ball joints

- your toe

- your tire pressure

On the pop, you need to check the axle u joints and control arms - also make sure you don’t have any linkage hitting something like the lower sway bar link mount. Sometimes the crossmember will pop from a loose nutsert in the frame.

My gut feeling is you need to go through that front end and also you are going to experience a much better drive when you do-

I replaced one control arm bushing and mount on my 06 tonight and it is significantly better than it was. Small things matter on these.
 
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Looks like I have some ball joint play in the drivers side. It looks like just the top ball joint is moving but I may as well replace all 4 if that much play deems it as a bad ball joint.

I couldn’t check for unit bearing play because as soon as I would shake my tire the entire steering assembly would move with the tire. I’m attributing that with the track bar bushing because I could see it move when I’d push/pull tire with my hands.

Toe is horribly off which I will be correcting with the new tie rod. Did the bad track bar bushing throw the toe off or was that caused by something else?

As for the track bar fix which definitely needs to happen ASAP, I really want the rock jock track bar but my bank account does not want one. Could I rebuild the johnny joint in my current track bar or do I just have to bite the bullet and buy a new one? It’s a JKS track bar
 

Also noticed this play in drag link. Should I replace the drag link too or is this amount of movement normal
 
Went to tighten the track bar at the frame and it was so loose that I could move the nut with a box wrench and one finger. Got the new tie rod in and torqued the track bar frame side mount to 110. Still not flush with the mount even when torqued though. Aligned my jeep and rotated tires and then took it for a spin. It drives much better now and the steering feels much more responsive. Will keep an eye on the track bar to see if it needs replacing