I just got my first jeep and I have some issues with it. It’s a 2017 wrangler Sahara unlimited with 50,000ml. Issue 1) I drive it and it’s feels like it’s all over the road. It wants to go left than right…I have to really work on keeping it straight. When It’s parked and I turn the steering wheel I can see the hood rise and drop.

 

Welcome to JKF! I'm just on the west side of Fort Worth myself. The best way to get videos here is to upload to YouTube and then simply copy/past a link to the video in your post. That will embed the video in the thread. I can't speak for others, but I am always leary of clicking on things on the web that then download to open on my PC.

The hood issue sounds strange and am curious to see that. In regard to the flightiness, is this completely stock or lifted? If lifted, can you post pictures of the steering and suspension so we can see the patient and what it has or does not have? Have you gotten an alignment, and if so please post the spec sheet they should have given you.

 

Don’t know to much about the history other than what the dealership told me but I do know it has a 2”-3.5” lift on it. Do you think I should replace the tie rods and drag link? They’re really easy to turn with my hand. And the jeep has adjustable control arms. I will post a video of the front end tomorrow.

The track bar I think is a rubicon

The shocks are all so rubicon 2-3.5

 

So that indeed looks like a Rubicon Express lift. It's hard to tell from the two pictures the size, but given those front control arms are adjustable RE and not factory, I'm guessing it is 3.5". It also looks like they have a track bar drop bracket on the frame side which ain't great. We can't see the drag link at the knuckle in the picture. It looks like factory DL maybe which makes me think it's not flipped to the top of the knuckle, and it doesn't look like there is a drop pitman installed -



If you can, take a picture, from the axle level if possible so we can access the relationship between the DL and TB. More pictures all around focusing on different areas of the front and rear axles and suspension can help us identify more as well. Kinda need to figure out what you're working with there before diving into worn joints or anything else. the DL/TB relationship, combined with their mouting points on the axle and frame, are going to have a pretty big impact on pavement manners.

 

Yes the DL is factory and it’s not flipped. From what I have read I think my DL and TB are not parallel. Do you think I should flip the DL?

parallel

 

So the DL is definitely mounted in the factory position on the underside of the knuckle, and best that I can tell by looking at that one picture, I am 99.5% sure that is a factory pitman arm. Since the track bar is dropped at the frame side, that puts the two components out of parallel. My opinion would be to remove the track bar drop bracket at the frame. This gets you back to factory. Note that in doing so, you will likely need to adjust the TB length to keep the axle centered horizontally under the jeep (and you might have to adjust the DL to recenter the steering wheel but that is nbd). The steering angle will be a little sharp but it's not the end of the world. If that really is a 3.5" lift (search the web for factory JK lift height and you'll see pics where to measure from to compare) then it's typically nice to have a high steer kit. That would be a new DL that you can mount to the top of the knuckle, and a raised axle-side TB bracket. That will raise the axle side mount for both bars, keeping them in parallel.

Just removing that TB drop bracket for starters should make an improvement in driving.

When doing a high steer setup, raising your axle side will always be preferred to lowering the frame side. Keep those frame side mounts as high as possible.

 

Ok thanks I’m going to try that first.

 

Before

After

 

And the results???

 

Ride is much better…..now me thing..it’s happened twice…one time before I moved the track bar and me after. When I’m driving at a higher speed or a Curve and I push the break I can feel something rubbing.I know in jeeps when you break the front end Dips a little. So do thing it dips Causes something to rub?