demtek9

Well here is the verdict. The pitman arm bolt was not tight. I could turn it with short handle adjustable wrench. I put it through a workout at EJS this year. It must have been working loose ever sense then.


One more thing to add to my annual maintenance checklist.

Its now not real squishy anymore but I might try that steering box adjustment to remove the little bit I think I feel....after I drive it a while.

Bobby T

Good to hear, that's an easy fix. I bought a paint pen and mark a line on all my bolts after I torque them to have a quick glance reference to see if any move at all. I recheck torque on just about everything I can get to every 6 months or so. Except lug nuts, those are at least every month.

demtek9

Good idea. I've got that on a some of my bolts but this steering brace caps over the pitman bolt to reduce side deflection in the rocks. It took 90 minutes to pull it off and check using hand tools.

The down side of not having it though is possibly loosing my steering box when cranking on the wheel.

docWrangler

Thanks for the steering box tip.

Sahara Lee

When I did 4" Rancho lift 2 years ago I added a drop arm (came with the kit). Torqued the nut to 160 ftlbs and steering felt loose. Put a 2" x4' pipe on the arm end and torqued to full 185 ftlbs. Looseness went away. When they say 185 ftlbs they mean 185 ftlbs.

ROGUE JK X

I put a 3.5 rough country on my 2door with a drop pitman arm and slowly the steering has become very sloppy and there is a gap in the steering that makes driving over 45mph extremly scary. I just put a new nut on the pitman arm and put some serious torque on it and my gap is still there. Is this more of a steering box issue? My steering stabalizer broke a long time ago and ive been running without it with 35's. I tried the bolt on top of the steering box and all it did was make the steering tight minus the gap. any thoughts?

RoughCountry

That does sound scary. Def put an eye and a wrench on the pitman arm and make sure it doesn't have any damage and is not loose. Also, take a moment and tighten up all of your track bar bolts. Drop bracket and all. Personally I would get a adj track bar on there as soon as I could and eliminate the drop pitman and track bar bracket. I'll be glad to help you out all I can.

Rock Krawler Suspension

Nice catch, a loose pitman arm nut can definitely cause you some bigger issues down the road if you hadn't caught that!

RK

ROGUE JK X

Unfortunately I don't think I have the original pitman arm anymore. Since I replaced the nut it hasn't gotten any more loose but the gap is still present. I actually just replaced the pitman arm because the old one had some broken teeth on the steering box side. None broken on the steering box itself though. I'm planning on putting a 4 inch kit on my JKUR soon, should I stick with the stock pitman arm and what not or will that not work without an adjustable track bar?

nthinuf

The trackbar centers the axle left/right under the frame.

The drop pitman/trackbar bracket lower the frame ends of the trackbar and drag link to lessen the steep angles caused by a tall lift. The trackbar bracket can also relocate the axle left/right when using the stock trackbar. (they work together to lessen the angles 'and' shift the axle a certain amount)

If you want to lessen the steep angles on those bars, an arguably better (and more expensive) route is a drag link flip (you also may see the term high steer).

The problem to wrap your head around is that the trackbar and drag link need to remain roughly parallel to each other. When you added a drop pitman, you lowerd the frame end of the draglink. You also relocated trackbar (with the bracket) to keep them parallel.

So if you run the stock pitman, you don't want to run the trackbar relo bracket since that would also make them not-parallel.

And if you do a drag link flip, you will raise the axle end of the draglink (as opposed to lowering the frame end with the drop pitman), so you will also need to raise the axle end of the trackbar to, again, keep them parallel. Clear as mud. Fun stuff, huh.