My wife hates how the Jeep rides

Goatman said:
So what I'm starting to gather is that the up and down motion of the Jeep is basically ok. It's the side to side motion that is the problem. That can be caused by a different set of causes.
Check your toe in. If that isn't where the Jeep likes it then it won't track right on the road. 1/16 to a bit over 1/8" is where most like to be. Mine was all over the place at 1/8". Adjusted to 1/16" and the difference was night and day. Others have better tracking at 1/8". It looks like your ANTIsway bar in front is angled way low in the pictures. Could be the angle of the photo, could be me. But the ANTIsway bar should be angled slightly upward for best response.
Go underneath and look extremely closely at all the steering joints while you have someone turning the steering wheel back and forth slowly about 1/4 turn back and forth. ANY movement here (including track bar and control arm mounts) can cause a tracking problem.
So if the bumps in the road are ok then you are probably not having a shock bottom out.
Try to be as specific as possible as to what road surface is causing what effect in the Jeep. And what type of road surface is being handled well.
As stated, a live axle short wheelbase (Jeep) vehicle will ride differently than one with independent steering. It is possible that your Jeep is doing everything right, but her expectations are unrealistic from a Jeep's suspension.
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I agree that if he's hitting his head on the window he's got excessive motion....unless someone has put some ridiculously small springs and it it does sound more like to me that he needs to really look at his control arms, bushings and mounts .

If they are worn they can give a Jeep a horrible feel.
 
Bullitt6283 said:
I do not know which OME springs they are. They were installed by the PO. If there is a way to tell, let me know...
I will try moving the rear swaybar link.
The Rancho shocks were those recommended to me (via email from Rancho) for the lift I have. They are P/N RS999241 for the rear and RS999239 for the front. It does not feel as though I am bottoming out on either the shocks or on the stops, or anything.
I measured the installed height of the springs and I confirm they correspond to 2" lift.
I have attached some pictures.
.View attachment 125905View attachment 125906View attachment 125907View attachment 125908View attachment 125909View attachment 125910View attachment 125911View attachment 125912View attachment 125913View attachment 125914View attachment 125915View attachment 125916
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Your springs will be identified by the tags on the springs. I see that a few of them have the tag yet. Hopefully enough for identification....
 
Answering some of your comments...

I had an alignment done (see the attachment).

The front anti-sway bar links are probably short. The Jeep suspension has been lifted 2".

All the control arm bushings, the panhard bar bushings, and the body mounts are confirmed good. (Four rear control arms and both panhard bars are new, installed right before the alignment).

I will check the tags on the springs to see if I can read them.

Except for the side-to-side roll on bumps, the jeep rides well and tracks well, with no wobble. My current theory is that the anti-sway bars are trying to keep the axles and tub parallel when I go over uneven pavement (as they should), and they are overpowering the shock absorbers which are set way too soft. I re-adjusted them and I'm going on a test drive this afternoon.

img20191122_13105962.jpg
 
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Bullitt6283 said:
Answering some of your comments...

I had an alignment done (see the attachment).

The front anti-sway bar links are probably short. The Jeep suspension has been lifted 2".

All the control arm bushings, the panhard bar bushings, and the body mounts are confirmed good. (Four rear control arms and both panhard bars are new, installed right before the alignment).

I will check the tags on the springs to see if I can read them.

Except for the side-to-side roll on bumps, the jeep rides well and tracks well, with no wobble. My current theory is that the anti-sway bars are trying to keep the axles and tub parallel when I go over uneven pavement (as they should), and they are overpowering the shock absorbers which are set way too soft. I re-adjusted them and I'm going on a test drive this afternoon.

View attachment 126072
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This is exactly what I was thinking too. Basically there is not enough dampening to slow the side to side rocking when you go over uneven pavement. It is fine if BOTH tires hit the same bump, but terrible if only one side hits something. You don't have enough compression dampening so inertia uses more of your travel. and because the springs and swaybar react with equal force, you don't have enough rebound dampening either. The result is lots of being tossed around. Re adjust your shocks to 4 or 5 or whatever you want and report back.
 
kmas0n said:
This is exactly what I was thinking too. Basically there is not enough dampening to slow the side to side rocking when you go over uneven pavement. It is fine if BOTH tires hit the same bump, but terrible if only one side hits something. You don't have enough compression dampening so inertia uses more of your travel. and because the springs and swaybar react with equal force, you don't have enough rebound dampening either. The result is lots of being tossed around. Re adjust your shocks to 4 or 5 or whatever you want and report back.
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I readjusted the shocks to mid-range (position 5) and then went for a drive this afternoon on a mixture of road surfaces, including 2-lane township roads, 2-lane rural roads, city roads, and 4-lane Interstate highway. I must say, and my wife agrees, that the side to side rocking has been greatly diminished.
The remaining reactions which the Jeep now has to road surfaces is reasonably explained by the peculiarities of the Jeep design.
 
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Bullitt6283 said:
Thanks Guys, for your advice and input.
You've given me some things to do.

As far as 👧 goes, we're coming up on our 50th, so I guess I'll have to fix the Jeep.... :cool:
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Congrats , I missed that ..great milestone . I get a little carried away poking fun ...the divorce rate in the world is sad really.

I never caught the tires you have , but if they are old, hard mud tires, that is likely the majority of the problem . Tires do stiffen over time, and mud tires really shine ...in mud. But seldom elsewhere .
 
AndyG said:
I never caught the tires you have , but if they are old, hard mud tires, that is likely the majority of the problem . Tires do stiffen over time, and mud tires really shine ...in mud. But seldom elsewhere .
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The tires are Nokian VATIIVA 265/75R16. They were installed by the previous owner. They are not LT or mud tires.
tire1.jpgtire2.jpg
 
Yea, those guys are shouldn't be more than a C rated tire. Most likely a P-series and are B rated. Air pressure can still be a problem with them. I have air gauges that read more than 10 psi apart. And that will make a big difference in ride quality. The 26-30 psi range is still a good place to be at.
Luckily with a bit of luck you can get those shocks tuned to YOUR optimum settings. And from there you may find a few other things to help even more.
That's why so many people on this forum always suggest really getting to know your Jeep before throwing money at a perceived problem. Every Jeep has her own personality.
Glad we could help. There is a standing list somewhere with who to name your next born after.😁
 
I’m a little late to the game @Bullitt6283 , but here are some suggestions.

1) 26psi

2) C Load tire

3) add a 0.5” spacer to match the Rancho recommendation. I honestly do not think the 5000x is going to solve this. The 9000x has adjustability to match the 5000x.

4) it is a short wheelbase vehicle. You will feel more. There is nothing you can do about this.

If you are not happy after all this, a Jeep is not for you. That’s ok.
 
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JMT said:
I’m a little late to the game @Bullitt6283 , but here are some suggestions.

1) 26psi

2) C Load tire

3) add a 0.5” spacer to match the Rancho recommendation. I honestly do not think the 5000x is going to solve this. The 9000x has adjustability to match the 5000x.

4) it is a short wheelbase vehicle. You will feel more. There is nothing you can do about this.

If you are not happy after all this, a Jeep is not for you. That’s ok.
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This is a good post and this guy is 1 of a dozen or so on this forum that is really really worth listening to...I'm not trying to discredit anyone, we've got a lot of fantastic guys on here.. but there are a number of guys on here that stay present , they know what they are talking about , and have the shop and trail experience to support what they say.
 
Bullitt6283 said:
I'll try to better describe the issue I'm having....

Let's say you are driving down a road at 30 MPH, and encounter a depression in the road. The right side of the pavement becomes lower by two or three inches for a distance of 3 feet, and then it rises again Only one tire on the right side is within the depression at any given time. For that tire to fall into the depression, the shock absorber must EXTEND. Hopefully the rest of the suspension will work together to keep the rest of the Jeep in its previous level attitude.

What I'm saying, though, is when my right front tire falls into that depression, the whole Jeep leans to the right and I hit my head on the side window. Then the front tire emerges from the depression, the whole Jeep becomes level again and my wife hits her head on her side window. Then the right rear tire goes into the depression, and all this head-hitting happens again.

I would assume that the shock absorber and the anti-sway bar should prevent most of this head-knocking. Right??
My current assumption is that I have the shock absorbers set way too soft.

(The head-knocking was for illustrative and dramatization purposes only. No side windows were harmed.)
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You’re simply describing what a straight axle does. Dodge the depression if you want to avoid head-knocking. 😉
 
Bullitt6283 said:
Bahahaha.... I was wondering how long it was going to take until someone said "just avoid the dip".... 😉

Cheers!
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You know I've driven a lot of jeeps good and bad and I've had 8.

It's really hard to compare them to other vehicles... Definitely starting in the coil spring era as a category they drove and tracked better... But that's not to say that all before did not ....I have had some really nice driving leaf spring Jeeps.

There are a couple things that stand out to me on Tjs ..

They can easily be made horrible.

Secondly they can have pretty good manners, but being a somewhat purpose-designed vehicle they just can't be everything.

And I say that carefully because in a sense they are a general purpose vehicle, and are used for a lot of things but they have a lot of off-road genetics... And that doesn't always equate to on road , plush characteristics.

I'll go a little further to say that there is a huge difference in opinion of how owners feel about the way their TJ drives and rides... And I've driven enough to know that there is a big difference in individual vehicles.

if you look around you the next time you're in traffic how many vehicles do you think have had the control arms changed, the steering modified tires that are 30 40% bigger than stock.... Almost nil.

I'm not saying any of this is evil, but hang on to this word-

Variation. Variation create all types of challenges.

In the business world nothing is more of a challenge than variation.

The reason McDonald's was so successful was they eliminated variation to the point that french fries are salted from back to front so that they are salted consistently.

Variation is the reason most every profile on here looks different ... And it does make it hard to figure out why someone's having some of the issues they are because we don't know what on Earth has been done or neglected.
 
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