I’ll give it a shot. Shouldn’t there have been a noticeable difference in handling based on those angles? Seems like it still has bump steer to me. Bumps in the road and it’s lunging.
Skyjacker suspension and handling issues
- Thread starter rtd16
- Start date
Your lines still do not tell you anything useful for the reasons already explained. All you still care about is using the factory mount locations.
I wouldn’t rule out general maintenance of all the front end components. Check the hubs for excessive play, ball joints could be sticking, stuck caliper, collapsed brake line, worn control arms bushings. You can jack up the front and grab the tire at 12 and 6 and yank and pull. If there’s movement check ball joints. Grab the tire 9 and 3 and yank and pull. This can let you know tie rods are worn. Spin the wheel do you hear any noise? You can also have someone in the jeep turning the wheel back and forth while you look for sloppy joints. I’m originally from PA so I know the salt of the east coast winters sucks! I’d be prepared to replace some of the items mentioned above.
Well I swapped everything out today. Went with the ZJ tie rod upgrade, Rough Country adjustable track bar, new stablizer and stock pitman arm. Ensured the axle was centered, did a tape measure alignment as close as I could get on the wheels. It still drives and handles about the same.Here's a photo of the previous set up with lines showing the track bar and drag link line up. The photo before the work shows them way out of whack, the after photo shows them pretty close to parallel. I don't get it. I also aired down the tires from 32 psi to 28 psi before I did all the work. That made a difference but not much. Seems like all this work was for nothing.
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How did you do your alignment? When I first put mine together it didn’t handle as well as I expected. I set toe using 3 foot pieces of aluminum angle clamped on the brake rotors. I measured again and found I had toe out. In playing with the setup to figure what was going on I realized with used rotors with some minor grooves I was deflecting the angle when clamping it thus throwing off my toe angle. I took some time setting up the pieces of angle so they wouldn’t deflect, set the toe and it was much better.
Another thing I found is when setting caster check the level of garage floor. I had about 1 degree of slope and it turned my 5 degree caster measurement to actually be 4 degrees. I was frustrated when I first put it together and it didn’t handle as well as I thought it should. Sometimes going back thru a second time and double checking helps. I figured out my caster measurement issue when I checked it with Jeep backed in and it was off significantly from the measurement with it pulled in. Mad me feel stupid chasing it around.
Where are you located in "Upstate" NY? People use that term loosely. I'm in Poughkeepsie area.
With a TJ you are limited in what you can adjust and you can do a pretty good alignment with some aluminum angle and a tape measure for toe, a decent digital angle finder for caster, and some string and a weight to check axel center. Depending on the skill of the alignment tech you may very well do better at home, you will likely be much fussier.
It may be worth double checking your settings if you are not happy with the handling as you should have fixed your bump steer issues. My point is when I sat down and spent more time measuring I found that I didn’t have what I thought I had for settings.
There are some great references on this forum for all aspects of doing an alignment. I followed MrBlaine’s steps and felt it worked well,
There is a great group of guys in your area that could help you as well as get you on the trails if you so desire. https://www.cdjw.org/
Is your steering wheel centered? Just a couple degrees off will allow some bump steer to filter through. It takes a few tweaks to get the steering properly centered, you may want to carry the tools with you, drive it a few hundred yards, check/tweak it, repeat until the wheel is centered.
Were you able to torque down both sides of the trackbar completely to spec?
You will have to explain that one, Artsi. The steering wheel being centered has nothing to do with bump steer.
There can be steering input from the steering gear being off center because the power steering is trying to help turn when you are trying to drive straight.
Correct. This is an entirely different phenomena.
But, it presents as bump steer. Acceleration causes a steer to the left, and braking causes it to steer right, but bumps actually still steer straight.
That is torque steer, not bump steering. Bump steer has a very specific set of parameters that define it and the cause.
As the front axle cycles within its range of motion, if the track bar and draglink are not describing the same arcs of travel and fighting each other, they will impart steering angle change to the wheels or the steering wheel depending upon which has the most resistance to movement. If you hold the steering wheel very steady and firm, the tires will move back and forth as the arcs fight each other. If you let the steering wheel float, then it will move back and forth and the wheels won't.
Please note that I said the arcs fight each other. It is very possible to have disparate lengths between the track bar and draglink and alter the relationship to a satisfactory low bump steer condition by changing the angle out of parallel to compensate. I'm not that smart but the factory is since the drag link and trackbar in stock form are nowhere near the same length with next to zero bumpsteer.
My steering wheel is in fact slightly off center, almost at the 1 o’clock position. It was before I started all this as well, assuming from the previous owners lift install. When swapping the components I actually painstakingly went through setting the wheels straight/aligned and setting the steering wheel at centered. Frustratingly once I connected everything and drove it, it was back at the one oclock spot. I am experiencing the “torque steer” symptoms you are explaining. When I accelerate or brake it pulls, and the steering feels generally very reactive or jerky. I thought that was bump steer
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