I have never really thought about this, but it reminds me of a Veritasium video I watched the other week explaining a similar thing about bicycle steering. Is this the same thing? I don't expect you to watch the whole video but it's below if of interest. Basic premise here is that when riding a bike, if you want to steer left you actually start by leaning right.....and without doing so you can't actually turn left. We do this naturally, without thought. What you're explaining above actually sounds like the same thing in a sense...the body rolls left and the reaction is a right steering input.

 

Russ, what you’re describing is a different animal. The Jeep gets a right steering input when the body rolls left because as the body and frame rolls left, the steering gearbox naturally moves with the frame and moves the drag link with it. This gives the right steering input. To break it down a little more, as the body and frame rolls left, the left side of the frame dips down and the line between the gearbox and knuckle becomes more level. Since the drag link is rigid, the knuckle has to move; this is the right steering input. It’s the same concept as flex steer.

A bicycle or motorcycle as you explained turns left with a right input is because it’s on two wheels. If you kept your body 100% upwards and turned the handlebars left, you would naturally fall to the right and crash. However, when you normally turn, you lean your body to the inside of the turn. This causes the bike to also lean inwards. So you turn right to go right only because if you didn’t turn right, you would also fall. Your turn of the handle bars picks up the front end in a sense. I used to ride motorcycles a while ago and did a lot of reading to better understand the aerodynamics and handling properties of motorcycles. On a motorcycle, you can increase your turn speed if you turn left to go right only because it forces the bike to lean to the right faster. But then you do turn right to keep going right and turn further right to bring your bike back upright. I’m fact, on motorcycles in a race, most of the traction in a turn is actually on your back wheel while your front wheel mainly just keeps you in the turn. If you want a good book about this and other bike related traction stuff, check out a book called “twist of the wrist”.

 

Interesting fact, when I was learning to fly helicopters we learn about gyroscopic procession. This basically means that an object in motion on a plane wants to stay in that plane. When a helicopter rotors are spinning, to get an input on the left side of the rotor system, the flight controls actually puts an input about 25 degrees before that side of the input because the rotors act as a gyro and the rotors don’t recognize that input till a small rotation after.

If you’re on your bike going a decent speed, let go of the handle bars and give them a slight tap (if you have the nerve to do so). The bike will naturally wiggle side to side a bit but will eventually straighten back out. This is exactly because of the gyroscopic precession described above.

Edit: just remembered, the gyroscopic precession is how some satellites are turned in space. Alter the movement of the gyro and the satellite moves accordingly.

 

tapping the bars on a bike and having the wheel go back straight is due to the angle of the forkl to the rotational force of the wheel, like how caster brings your steering wheel back straight. If the fork shaft on the bike was vertical you would a different result.

 

First, I’d Like to thank everyone who offered to help. It is all appreciated. I recently found that the hole in the rear track bar bracket on the frame side was much larger than it should be and welded in a 1/2 inch hardened washer to fix that. The traction control is still engaging on the highway. Here is what I don’t understand. I drove this Jeep to Moab Utah from Denver , wheeled for four days and came home with no issues during the entire trip. All on the same springs , control arms, shocks and sway bars. None of these handling issues started until I replaced the ball joints. The Jeep is now on taller tires with all of the geometry corrected with synergy parts and new ball joints. So, why after adding bigger, taller tires. New ball joints and correction all of the geometry am I having issues?

 

I stand corrected. Thanks for clarifying.

 

If the BJs haven't been broken in yet you'll experience serious wandering..I had to wait around 700 miles or so before the Jeep started driving straight after TF BJs were installed. Can't explain the tc engaging though. Check the front TB doesn't have any play in it.