OK Here's my situation, and a model of what not to do. I'm hoping somebody can help out of this so I can repress the memory asap LOL Apologies ahead of time for the wordiness.....

Had a fair amount of steering shake regardless of the terrain. On rare occasion escalating to Death Wobble, but always shaking wheel in my hands. Hired guy who has a monster XJ, and is building his own Extreme 4X4 style ride to fix me up. Cost aside I wanted two things, solid steering and beefy parts. Guy says yeah man go get this DOM and heims and we'll be in business. So I do.

He welds everything up, proud owner of like 40lbs of draglink and tie rod LOL. Upon further review of my geometry he strongly suggests an axle side trackbar bracket, so better align my stuff. We could proceed but without the bracket we would be guessing. So we stop for the day. (Another vacation day lost)

I come back with the bracket, and a couple more heims so we can make new super heavy trackbar with the leftover DOM. He drills out my knuckles to 3/4 to drop the 7/8 heim'd tie rod in. Install tie rod uneventfully. Go to install trackbar bracket, guess what my now straight as an arrow tie rod has no clearance on anything. Not only can I not install the bracket, he had to cut my stock stab bracket off so I can turn right. Shave shave shave later, at max full lock right I am kissing the right endlink tabs and the diff cover at full lock left. They are barely touching so I don't think I am losing any turning radius, but I am displeased to say the least. I come to realize XJs are not JKs, and I was just as well off doing this myself.

So my geometry has yet to change. Furthermore with all the trouble we ran into on the supposed to be simple tie rod, I am balking like mad and do not want to drill out the pitman arm nor top of the knuckle to install super heavy duty draglink. On the plus side, we discovered that the JKS Monster Track Bar I already have is shaking and baking both in the mounting bracket and on the bolt itself. We go to the hardware store and buy 9/16ths bolts that are MUCH better fit in the JKS. Install. Pleasantly tight frame side, but still sloppy in the quasi wallowed out hole on the axle side. He tacks the head of the bolt in place.

Unable to use the track bar bracket and unwilling to further molest my knuckles (and gritting my teeth about it being done at all for the tie rod), Test Drive.

Death Wobble like crazy. Redneck alignments, rechecking bolt tightness etc etc 2 more test drives result in more DW. Bummer cause I'm 70 normal minutes from my house. Without a clue of anything left to try, I go home. Almost 2 hours and 39 Death Wobbles (I counted) later, I make it home. Any time along the way accelerating to or deccelerating down to 40mph is wobble central.

Let it sit a day and dont even look out the window at it cause I'm pissed. LOL

Get another guy (This one a certified mechanic) to come over and give it a looksie. We **** with the alignment for like two hours. He mentions that it seems my right tires are slightly closer together than my left. I think this is odd considering I still have all my stock nonadjustable control arms. Anyways. I wait till late that night and take it to an alignment shop. (One death wobble on the new redneck alignment) Next morning the shop reports, yep your alignment was ****ed.

All the way home I drive at 40mph, nothing happens. Steering feels decidedly tighter (I believe thanks to a much more solid track bar). A hint of a smile appears. Next morning I take it to work, cautiously optimistic. Still get one DW. I gotta get my steering stabilizer back on methinks. Its driving MUCH more solid feeling, just need to take off the edge of weird bumps and such throwing it into a fit.

Of course, super no-clearance tie rod is proving most disagreeable. Can't use the stock mount because the forward tab is gone. Had a dual stab on there but since the tie rod is so close, dual stab piston smacks axle side track bar mount going right, and smack frame side trackbar mount going left. This evening I removed the right stab piston completely, and installed the left one more centered. Whether its going to help or not I dunno, but atleast at the moment its not fouling anything. I'll find out on the way to work tomorrow morning. Got one spot in the road that so far has created DW every time I drive it.

SO. Despite now literally ALL of my vacation used and well over $500 invested, what is my best move here? Live with the no clearance tie rod (assuming the stab keeps the DW away?) Invest $300 MORE plus a 1/2" drill and 7/8 bit, drill out my knuckles even more and get a 1 ton flipped tie rod kit? I can't put my stock rod back on because the knuckles have already been drilled out, PLUS the passenger side was being a b*tch so it was cut off under the nut anyways. Buy new knuckles AND a new stock tie rod?

I haven't given up my dreams of beefy functional steering. But my patience and my wallet are taking a Tebow-like beating here, and the rest of me will too from the Mrs soon....

 

Rarely do I find myself speechless, but...

Know anybody who can weld? I'm really at a loss on how to advise you, here. I mean, it's like you started building a high-rise with the wrong blueprints, and didn't realize it till about the 8th floor.

I guess I'd recommend you go the new knuckles and new stock tie rod route. Before you can have "beefy functional steering", you should ensure that the steering works in the first place. I have a feeling the $500 you've spent so far is just pocket change.

Never thought I'd use the word flabbergasted, but damn.

Sorry I couldn't be more help. Hope it works out.

 

I've fabbed my own steering / tracbars on my last few rigs but on the JK, I tried store bought for a change. And not dissing store bought in the least, there are some great pieces out there. Anyways, I went with the "orange knuckles". Mostly for the raised tie rods and flipped by design drag link. Ditched the drop pitman arm and trac bar drop bracket that came on the rig. Installed stock pitman arm and raised my trac bar mount at the axle end to match drag link. Purchased aftermarket tie rod and drag link (many good choices). Zero death wobble or bump steer. I think the only way you can increase your tie rod clearance is to press some bends at each end of your fabbed tie rod. The arms on the knuckles are just a bit short. Definatley doable if you want to keep your current parts. As you already know, when using rod ends on a street driven rig, you have to make sure the bolts fit very snug in the knuckles / brackets and things are tightened down well to avoid DW.

 

I agree with what gkr said. I would check out the Reid knuckles instead of the stockers. I tried to flip my tie rod using the currie tie rod and there is no room to flip it. Im not sure if the stock tie rod can even be flipped due to the way they Cast the tie rod and drag ink mounts.
It sounds like u got a big can of worms open, and I would not drive your jk at all if u have death wobble. U will damage other parts and cost yourself more money.

 

Yeah I was thinking about those orange knuckles alright, just wanted to see if there was anything I could do with my current pile. (And I COMPLETELY agree with the building/blueprints analogy.) Apparently the loud CHA CHING register sound I have been hearing all weekend is going to continue for awhile eh... :(

So replacement is better than trying to make chicken salad? GKR did you use the RC trackbar bracket? (Thats the one I have that I can't use. Almost chopped the **** out of the bottom of it to clearance the PIA tie rod, glad I halted that process!) I have a J K S Monster Track Bar which I like just fine. Not to mention the bolt is welded on now. LOL

I thought about trying to press the tie rod, but that would make the rod too short--I don't wanna see an inch and a half of heim threads on each side. I will say that, the rod was cut and welded up to fit just great, about a quarter inch of threads or so showing. I could probably drive through a building with it. Except I can't even get to the building.

 

Wow..... What more can we say? I feel for you, I'm subscribing just to follow this one. I know this type of upgrade is coming for me.....

 

Well sportsfans, a day of driving around resulted in zero death wobbles and only the slightest hint of wobbly action in the steering wheel when I hit particularly bumpy roads. Having a steering stab on there (even one) seems to have temporarily mended the situation.

However, I leave on business Monday morning for a couple of months, so I need to figure out what I want to do, who I want to do it, and get the ball rolling.......