TJ feels like it moves left or right by itself

Ozzie2000tj

New Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2018
Messages
6
Location
Illinois
Hey guys new Tj owner here. Jeep is a sport with a 4.0 & has a 4 in lift and 33’ tires. I haven’t really had the chance to drive my tj since I already have my daily driver. But I noticed when I do drive it the ride will feel completely normal and out of nowhere it feels like it moves either left or right by itself. It feels really sketchy, specially driving in narrow roads. I wanted to see if you guys have any tips or where I should start looking for my problem or what it might be. Thanks for reading


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My guess is it's probably got a drop pitman arm (which it shouldn't have), and it may need an alignment as well.

Take some photos of the front underside of it. Try to get a good photo like this where we can see all the components:

22ae549fd58a577f241167a27ca33b30.jpg
 
Okay, there is two issues going on there I see.

First off, someone has added a second steering stabilizer that is attached to the tie rod. That needs to be removed completely as it shouldn't be there to begin with and is doing no good.

The second thing is that you have a drop pitman arm which is more than likely the culprit as to why your steering is wandering (this is a known issue with dropped pitman arms).

You'll need to put a stock pitman arm back in place of it.
 
Thanks guys I’m new to the Jeep world so I was kind of lost on where to begin. And I will remove the second stabilizer. I also didn’t see the point on why that was added


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First off, someone has added a second steering stabilizer that is attached to the tie rod. That needs to be removed completely as it shouldn't be there to begin with and is doing no good.

Wow, how did I miss that? Must be my mind was actually on work, which is what I should be doing now instead on browsing here - shhh, don't tell on me!

I bet the previous owner added it because they thought (incorrectly) that it would help with the wandering.
 
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When you remove one of those steering dampers, make sure it's the lower one. After you remove that and the drop pitman I would get a buddy and do a dry steering test. You can search the forum for more info on that test.
 
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Take a look at the wheel bearings/hub assembly. When the one on my truck was imploding, it started to do that out of no where, then drive fine, then yank the wheel, then fine. Worth a look. Jack her up and grab the tire at 12 and 6 and give her a wiggle.


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Take a look at the wheel bearings/hub assembly. When the one on my truck was imploding, it started to do that out of no where, then drive fine, then yank the wheel, then fine. Worth a look. Jack her up and grab the tire at 12 and 6 and give her a wiggle.


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Thanks I’ll take a look at them too.


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Check your ball joints while it’s up also, if they are worn the tires can grab a rut in the road and pull your side to side pretty quickly and easily. Same as the 6 and 12 as mentioned above but the play would come from a different area.


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As above replace the dropped Pitman arm but then before doing anything else, make sure the toe-in is correct. You'll have to re-center the steering wheel after installing the OE Pitman arm, that's a good time to check/adjust the toe-in. Also make sure the tires are not overinflated which can exacerbate a steering problem. Your 33's should run 26 psi around town when the Jeep is lightly loaded, 28 psi when fully loaded on the highway.
 
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If a Jeep wanders, always check the front hub bearings . At least check em.
 
Does it feel like it’s wandering or is it abruptly shifting direction? I just dealt with an issue where the Jeep would be driving down the road and would suddenly change direction by a few degrees. It turned out to be a broken mounting bolt on the steering box that resulted in movement in the steering box causing the direction shift. I’ve also heard that a worn gear in the steering box can cause this same issue.

To diagnose the loose steering box, I had someone else turn the steering wheel and the steering box was clearly moving when the steering wheel was being turned.
 
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Does it feel like it’s wandering or is it abruptly shifting direction? I just dealt with an issue where the Jeep would be driving down the road and would suddenly change direction by a few degrees. It turned out to be a broken mounting bolt on the steering box that resulted in movement in the steering box causing the direction shift. I’ve also heard that a worn gear in the steering box can cause this same issue.

To diagnose the loose steering box, I had someone else turn the steering wheel and the steering box was clearly moving when the steering wheel was being turned.

I’ll check that out too


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I had a similar issue. Turned out that my track bar was loose/worn out. I replaced it with a heavy duty one. It fixed the issue.

Mine felt like if I were driving it would go to the left and then if I jerked the wheel a little to the right it would start tracking to the right.
 
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Hope you all don't mind me hijacking this thread, I have what is probably the exact same problem, '99 Wrangler Sport 4.0 with power steering, just bought it (my first Jeep) so I'm new to 4-wheeling/off-roading. Going down the road it constantly drifts back and forth laterally, almost feels like it's skating back and forth, dips in the road make it worse, it never yanks hard on the wheel but it pulls it side to side. Local alignment shop has checked over the front and and aligned it twice, swears the geometry is all good (did add some caster angle to smooth out the road driving), front end was rebuilt by previous owner and alignment guys says it's all good, no bad ball joints or bearings or anything.
steering issue 01.JPG
steering issue 02.JPG
steering issue 01.JPG
Tires replaced (they were bumpy bad like they were flat-spotted, I thought that might be causing the steering problem like maybe the steel belts had slipped, the new tires smoothed out the bumpies but still have the steering problem, now I'm wondering if this issue caused the other tires to go bad?), still the same thing. I've thought all along that something in the lift kit must have changed the geometry or suspension and caused this. But after seeing this thread, I checked and mine also has the drop arm. Is that all that it needs to fix it is the stock Pitman?