Gent's,

First off I would like to express my thanks to David at Northridge for helping me order the OME 2" lift kit and adj. track bars. He was responsive as always and a great help on all my questions. Also the OME kit looks awesome and am hoping it all works out. Lastly - Thanks to WayofLife the write up was awesome and a great help. Now on to the problem.


( I tried to be detailed so it's a bit long)

So today I installed the OME 2" lift with HD springs on my automatic 2-dr 2007 X with JKS front and rear adj. track bars. Was able to use the on base automotive shop so got the big lift, impact tools, and pretty much anything needed so didn’t have to skip on any tools. Installed the front and rear in about 4.5 hours and pretty much followed WoL's write-up. Although I am very new to all this I did have to helpers who have experience working on Jeeps.

So after the install drove great then about 5 minutes in the ESP light started flashing, the there was a noise and shudder coming from what felt like the front left tire area. It was at about 35 mph and continued until I braked to a stop. It sounded springy (if that’s a word) a bump with a metallic echo. Drove to a house on post about 2 miles away real slow without any further incident. There, we checked around that all was tight and no rubbing was visible.

There notice the lower sway bar connections were lose and the front left shock was not tightened down. Tightened all these fittings and again checked the track bars as well as all other fittings.

Test drove it again, 3 min in, going uphill at 35 mph the same thing occurred, then stopped and it went away. Had an experienced co-pilot this time and did some runs accelerating, breaking and went up to 45 mph and some short stops with no issues.

Returned checked on everything again - nothing he or I noticed. Continued to drive it home 1 more time and incident occurred again, a little more aggressive then the others. Didn't want to take it on the highway to get back so left it to follow up on tomorrow.

So, any ideas?

1) I have searched and found trackbars as a consistent issue if not torqued, I did check this multiple times and had them torqued at the shop.

2) No visible rubbing on the springs, shocks, track bar or sway bar.

3) My only though is that is could be the ESP? Feels an odd sensation and turns on trying to break the Jeep. During the install the wires were pretty tight.

Any help would be appreciated, will be checking out the forums in depth as well to see if there are similar cases, Thanks!


--Chris

 

First thing, is the steering wheel centered?
Have you tried adjusting it?
It sounds like the ESP is kicking in and activating the brake where you are hearing all the ruckus.

What tires/rims, and any other tech details?

 

Did you re-center the steering wheel?

 

That may be it!! We tried to do a good re-center, but it went about a quater to a full turn off again after driving off. I knew what "straight" was on the skewed wheel positions and was planning to fix it in the daylight again. Did not realize the computer read the wheel position based on original straight, in fact forgot the computer inputed that at all... (looking for the smily hitting himself in the head to insert here).

I will set that first thing in the morning and let you know if it works.

"If you’ve just installed a suspension lift on your Jeep JK Wrangler and without installing a new adjustable front track bar, your steering wheel will most likely be off a bit and it will need to be re-centered before you can safely drive it. Not centering your steering wheel will cause your ESP system to think you are in a slide and will try to compensate for it by activating your BAS. Depending on where you are when this happens, it can be an annoying experience to down right dangerous." WoL's Front End Alignment Write-up

I read this and and had it printed out to ref. while I was working.......

Thanks for the quick responses.

Also the rest of my specs if it dosen't:
-33" Nitto Terra Grapplers
-Procomp 7189 wheels, 17x9
-Terraflex front swaybar disco's
-Shrockworks rock sliders
-Rugged Ridge Modular Bumper with a Warn Ti 9500
Rest is stock for now...

 

sounds like you got the "fix"... now post pics! lol

 

That's right.

Get that sucka adjusted, it shouldn't take more than a few tries, and then get is some potos!

 

let us know how it turns out, inquiring minds want to know.

 

Does the toe-in change with a lift or does the higher center of gravity require different settings?

 

Indeed it was the ESP going off since apparently I was making a continuous 90 degree degree without trying to break, at least it wasn't something major!

Thanks for the quick help from everyone.

Here are some poser photo's, hope to hit some trails up this weekend and will follow up with how it all did!





Was in a bit of a rush, better pics to come

... and no the Rubi in the background isn't mine, it's my boss's

 

nice! congrats