New to the forum but not new to jeeps. Recently bought a lifted used 08 JK Sahara. Running 35’s with what measures out to be a roughly 3” spring lift. When I bought it I had a wheel alignment performed and had the steering box replaced. It has a rough country lift and a drop pitman arm (pics below) I measured the toe twice and it is at 0 (no tow in or out). Driving the wanders and head a dead zone in the steering from 11-1 if looking at a clock. It doesn’t have bump steering, can hit train tracks and pot holes at 45mph and stays straight, and doesn’t have death wobble. Just wanders and is a challenge to control on 2 lane country roads with on coming traffic. Open to thoughts. Was going to go back to stock pitman and adjust toe in to 1/8’’.

 

With 3 inches of lift, your caster is likely too low (factory is 4.2 deg). The low caster will make it feel like it wanders. You may want to look at adjustable control arms or drop brackets. Brackets that drop the frame side of the control arms to get your caster back to a better spec.

Would look at getting rid of the drop pitman arm and the adding a raised track bar bracket at the axle. The goal is for the drag link and track bar to be parallel to each other. The preferred method is a raised track bar bracket at the axle.

As for the dead spot, perhaps the 0 toe in is the cause. I know some folks report a dead spot in the center of their steering range when toe is set to 0 instead of 1/8 inward.

 

Probably another RC 3.5". Popular lift that comes with Drop Pitman + Trackbar Bracket, and LOTS of problems that folks come here to get help with...

If you still have the specs from the alignment, post them.

What form of Caster correction came with the lift? (Cam Bolts, Fixed Control Arms, Brackets?)

Have you, personally, verified that the Drop Pitman is tight? Not uncommon for folks to find that nut has loosened up.

If you remove the Drop Pitman, be sure to remove the Trackbar Bracket at the same time. They work together to keep those bars parallel while flattening the angles on both. (a new adj trackbar would then be used to center that axle)

And yeah, getting rid of the Drop Pitman and going with a Flip/High-Steer might not be a bad call.

 

thanks for the responses. I bought the jeep with the lift on it. It looks like its been on there for a while (springs have a lot of rust). Talked to the shop that did the alignment. The said they set the alignment back to stock settings. I told them I measured the toe at 0 and they seemed to think that was in their tolerance range. I asked him what the toe setting should be for a lifted jeep with 35" tires and he said he wasn't sure if it should be anything other than stock. I think I'll make a minor toe in adjustments and see if that helps. If not, I'll pull the drop pitman arm and track bar relocation bracket off and go back to stock to see if that helps. Last step is to do a drag link flip and put the trackbar relo bracket back on. I don't have DW or Bump Steers, so i'm trying to avoid introducing those issues.

thx.

 

As mentioned, adding some caster will really help with the wandering. I actually run quite a bit more than stock.