04DrBlur

Oh and no I have not had it in for an alignment yet as I am still debating on just getting the 3" full traction lift.

wayoflife

I have no doubts that it "helped" a lot but my question was, did it FIX the reason why you were having steering issues in the first place. After installing a lift, your axle will shift enough to cause tracking problems. Likewise, the higher you go, the more your caster will flatten out which will cause wandering problems. Combine either or both with wider tires and now you're just amplifing the problems. Again, a new steering dampener will mask or hide these problems but it will not FIX them. If you fix them, you will not need a new dampener.

Rubimon

I am doing to mods that wayoflife is talking about first. Hopefully they get here soon. If that improves my tracking, I will probably stop there.

I have a friend with an older Bronco. He just put larger tires/no lift and said it turned it into a death machine. He took them back. They told him to do the steering stabilizer.

04DrBlur

Thats what I am saying is I first installed the tires with no lift and drove it like that for a few days and decided I couldnt live with the wandering. So with no lift why would it have been all over the road? None of my suspension geometry should have changed right?

wayoflife

Certainly, wider tires will tend to track more (especially if they are new mudders) but a vehicle with the proper toe-in and caster should still handle well enough. Why you experienced this problem, I'm not 100% sure. However, I can tell you that the factory caster is only ±4.2° which is pretty shallow and that people like doojer had his toe-in off from the factory. Perhaps your JK suspension was off from the get go... maybe not. All I'm saying is that typically, steering handling issues can be caused by any number of things and a new steering dampener is usually nothing more than a bandaid fix for them.

04DrBlur

Well I will at least have the alignment checked then. What you say make total sense I just assumed the dinky damper was the problem.

nam6869usmc

I installed the Skyjacker just to upgrade from a little thin stock one to a more beefy stabilizer. Plus it's "Pretty" I felt no difference from stock stabilizer to the Skyjacker.
I only have (2) > 3/4" spacers up front and I'm feeling a very slight "Wandering", (floats a little), probably just enough lift to change the "Caster" a dab... hey, now I can upgrade to lower adjustable control arms...

wayoflife

Actually, I'm gonna bet that what you're experiencing is tracking due to the axle shift caused by your lift. If I'm correct, you haven't address this yet with an adjustable front track bar have you? But, I suppose your caster could be off too. Who knows, maybe it's a combination of both. Either way, you would typically need adjustable "upper" control arms to correct caster and not "lowers"

nam6869usmc

Eddie, your correct, I have no Adjustable Track Bar yet, so the 1st thing I should do is this. I just read an install article where a 3" needed needed 9/16" longer to get it back to center. So if I round my front lift to an even 2" how do you calculate this. What would I need in length? . Bye the way, my steering wheel looks pretty straight, or it's so little that I don't see it. I just read this below:
6. To minimize the amount of adjusting you will need to do, try to set the length of your new track bar as close as you can to where it needs to be before you install it. In my case, I just installed a 3" lift and therefore set it to about 9/16" longer than the OEM .

wayoflife

Hmmm, the approximate 9/16" shift is definitely something that was needed on a TJ with a 3" lift but in all honesty, I have no idea how much or how little would be needed on a JK. Likewise, I'm not sure how you would calculate the exact measurement as most lifts yield slightly different amounts of acutal lift and a lot of the adjustment you'll need to make is a matter of trial and error. Typically, you would just measure the distance in how much one wheel sticks out beyond the fenders vs. the other and then make corrections as needed.