XJ on tons steering issues

Crowther86

New Member
Joined
Jul 17, 2009
Location
Laurinburg
I've got a 2001 XJ sitting on a 6.5" rough country long arm lift and a Dana 60 up front and Dana 70 in the rear off of a 1998 Dodge Ram HD Diesel running 36" military humvee tires.

My question is, the steering feels good at low speeds but the faster I go the worse it gets. It seems to grab every little rut in the road and run with it. To the point where I don't want to pass anyone. It drives all over the road and I've changed upper/lower ball joints on both side and all the joints in the steering. I haven't had an alignment yet, but I'm trying to figure this out before I align it. Any ideas? Maybe it's the castor? What should it be? Thanks for your help!
 
Maybe I am missing something here, but exactly what kind of steering are you using? stock inverted y or inverted T like a 1 ton set up? I know that when I had my "1 ton" setup...I had a really bad dead spot and would do alot of the things you said your steering is doing. The only thing I can thin of would be if you haven't had it professionally aligned yet....I did my own alignment with a tape measure with my stock inverted y setup and it still had bump steer, forked out the $60 for a machine to do it and has been great steering since.

If you are using a 1 ton setup, is it OTK? also I have heard of people buying those cutting boards and cutting out a spacer and placing it on both sides od the knuckles to eliminate that tie rod roll.
 
ai73.photobucket.com_albums_i223_Crowther86_d2825a5b.jpg


hopefully that worked... If not try this

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i223/Crowther86/d2825a5b.jpg

it's the stock steering from the steering wheel to the PS box, then from there on it's all the steering components from the 98 dodge ram diesel. Everything is tight, just something "feels" loose. Not while I'm driving, it's responsive... Tight driving, but when it hits a groove in the road it pulls hard!!
 
I'm getting it aligned tomorrow.... We'll see how that goes! Hopefully that helps! I also heard that maybe it's my tires are too wide for my rims... I bought the runs and tires as a set, so I never checked them.
 
an alignment won't fix the castor problem if thats the root cause of this. Check the angle of the knuckles front to rear.
 
We did find out something.... Something we just didn't see until I was under the truck and someone else turned the steering wheel..... The mount for the drag link is cracked... Think that'll do it? Hahhaha and yes, the castor is pitched 4 degrees forward (-3.8) so we are going to run it back to zero and see if we still need to go back from there.
 
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