What are these steering components?

[RamblinWreck]

My TJ had a 4" lift kit from Pro Comp installed years ago and as I've been working on rebuilding my steering after an accident. I came across a couple of components that came with the lift kit that I have not seen on other pictures of kits on this forum. The lift kit instructions calls them a "crosslink track bar brace" and a "secondary support brace". They are attached to a track bar mount that also came with the kit. In the picture below, they are the two parallel gray bars that are right over the steering stabilizer.

The consensus on this forum says that my trackbar needs to be parallel to the drag link. When I replaced the drag link and steering gear box I went with a stock pitman arm instead of a dropped one. You can see that the bolt where these gray support bars in question attach on the passenger side is bent. I don't know if this is related to the accident that caused me to replace the drag link in the first place, or something else.

Does anyone know what these bars are for or if they are even really needed?

Thanks.

 

[Jerry Bransford]

The technical term for that is a hillbilly kludge. ProComp didn't know what they were doing when they designed it and only thought it must be good due to the extra gizmos added. In this case more parts & gizmos were not better.

My bet is you are experiencing severe bump steer which is where the steering moves (bumps) left/right when driving over bump/dips on the road or trail.

That has to be the very worst steering setup I've ever seen, really. That double brace should removed and so should that kludge of a track bar mount. The driver's side track bar should be bolted to the OE/factory track bar mount and that dropped Pitman arm should be replaced with the OE factory Pitman arm. Do those and your steering issues will disappear and you'll love how much better the steering works and feels.

 

[Wildman]

This was ProComps try at not to have bump steer and who knows what else. My TJ when I bought it in 2002 had the same stuff on it. I had nothing but issues with the whole setup and ripped it all off after one of the heims they use sized.
If you need a stock pitman arm I think I have one laying around in my garage.

 

[RamblinWreck]

LOL,Thanks Jerry. I have read some other threads with your feedback was hoping that you'd come through for me with some input. I didn't have a whole lot of input when this lift kit was installed but obviously my dad had a kit sold to him that that included everything but the kitchen sink. Now that I own it and have started to learn about how a TJ actually works and is maintained, I knew that something was off with this setup. I'll be pulling them off.

To answer your question, lets just say that diving this thing is the epitome of what a Jeep probably should not feel like based on some of the info I've found on this forum. I'm finding out all the things that I've been doing wrong — bump steer, MTs while living on the highway, over pressurized tires, installed shocks that are known to be some of the stiffest around, 3.07 gearing with large tires, and now a hillbilly kludge. Let's just say that whatever I'm not rebuilding because of my traffic accident, I'm rebuilding because of what I know now were poor choices when my dad and I originally build this 17 years ago.

 

[RamblinWreck]

This was ProComps try at not to have bump steer and who knows what else. My TJ when I bought it in 2002 had the same stuff on it. I had nothing but issues with the whole setup and ripped it all off after one of the heims they use sized.
If you need a stock pitman arm I think I have one laying around in my garage.

I'll give it a shot after I rip out these support braces and bracket and see if it rides any better but I may just rip everything else out if I have any cash left after the rest of my repairs.

I did get a stock OE pitman arm as a replacement when I replaced my steering gear box so I should be set on that end. Thank you though.

 

[Hockey916]

Wow I just literally posted asking the same question. Should have read your post first!