This has probably already been talked about. I have a 3.25” lift with 35s. I have a some shimmy and slight jerking in the steering wheel at about 50mph. I have a new adj track bar, new tie rod assembly, alignment and rebalanced wheels. I keep my tires at about 25 psi and that seems to help a little. What else am I looking at here?

 

Might just be the tires. I have general x3s on mine. Every once in a while when it sits for a day or two ill get a steering wheel shimmy at 45-50. I thinks its just the nature of 73lb 35s and 1/2 thick MT sidewalls. Once they heat up it goes away. And it is not all the time. Another thing is 25 is kind of low-ish. The flex of the sidewall might be causing some of it.

 

I agree I’ve asked some shops and they say it’s probably the tires. I have Mastercraft Courser MXTs. I did some research and saw that with the weight of wranglers, 35s should be at 24-25psi. I thought I would give it a shot. It does drive better than at 35 psi, steering doesn’t seem as “flighty”. I’m a new jeeper so I’m still trying to figure things out. I wasn’t sure if I should look into a new damper as well. I appreciate all the input though.

 

Np. Most will tell you damper wont fix the issue. You might see a small improvement. But it wont "fix" anything. I daily mine. And wheel it pretty well too. I wont go into all the details of my suspension set up (2.75) but can tell you that you may want to add drop brackets if you dont have them. I assume not since you said "flighty". I bought a set of the drop brackets, either rancho or jks, i dont remember which brand, but they both make good box welded designs. It was the best thing i did to tighten the drivability for my daily driven jeep. And for what its worth i eventually settled on 30psi.

 

Before you start to consider throwing parts at it, you might fill in some blanks. Which lift, which components are installed, were the bolts tightened on the ground under vehicle weight or while in the air, what are the alignment specs, what load rating are the tires, did you have them re-balanced a second time, etc etc.

The first thought for a speed related shimmy is generally balance. The techs are people, they can and do make mistakes on occasion. I personally go in every 6 months for a free balance/rotation, and several times have gone in with no shimmy, and left with a shimmy after the balance. Twice, I have had to go back 2 extra times to get rid of the shimmy that was not there when I originally went in. So yeah, I can't say it IS the balance, but at this point, you can't say it is NOT...

As noted above, the most common symptom of 'flighty' is generally low Caster. Stock is around 4 degrees, after that 3.25" lift it was likely down around 3 degrees. Without knowing what components you installed, or what the alignment specs currently are, all we can do is guess.

Higher pressure will certainly add to flighty/wandering steering, but you said lowering the pressure only helped, didn't get rid of it, so, that kinda goes back to previous questions.

 

thanks for the reply. It’s a 3.25 RC suspension lift. Springs, shocks, rear track bar bracket, sway bar links, and brake line ext brackets. Lift was put together on a vehicle lift. I’ve added the tie rod kit and adj track bar. Tires had balance beads, had them taken out and rebalanced, road force and dynamic. Aligned after everything was installed. Tires are “E” rated. I’m no mechanic by any means but am trying to learn. I know jeeps are an expensive habit so I’m trying to minimize the cost like everyone else. Alignment results are attached. Again, thanks for any input.

 

Yep, Caster is really low. If you choose to correct it, your choices are: Cam Bolts, CA Brackets (as mentioned above), a set of Fixed control arms, or a set of Adjustable control arms. Any of them will rotate the front axle to raise the Caster, but there are pro's/con's, so be sure to do a little research before just jumping on the cheap option.

If I read that right, you tried beads, then two different types of tire balance? Maybe start with Caster and see how it turns out before spending more time at a tire shop, but keep in the back of your mind that it could be a bad tire from the mfg and not just balance.

Some folks have found that tightening bolts while in the air on a lift will bind up the bushings and cause some handling issues. From your description, the control arms were not touched during the install so, who knows, maybe they are bound a bit and could stand to be loosened and re-torqued at this current height. It's free at least.

You are also in the height range to be thinking about a draglink flip. Not mandatory, but again, research it and see what you think.

 

I was as actually thinking about a drag link but wasn’t sure. I purchased the rims and tires used, beads were already in them and I had them rebalanced. The shimmy is not terrible, and I know I’m not riding in a Cadillac, just was curious on what I should be expecting. I’ll check the control arms on the AM. Thanks again for your knowledge. I appreciate it very much.

 

Yeah, it's a jeep, it's supposed to ride like crap! You probably don't want to buy into that. If it rides poorly, there is more than likely a reason behind it. A cheap lift with lower quality coils/shocks, the lift did not include a component used to 'fix' an issue that was solely caused by the new height (Caster correction, in your case), worn out components (whether that is from time and use, or added stress from bigger tires, or lower backspace, or whatever), lack of maintenance (tightening loose bolts and squirting grease into zirks seems like a no-brainer, but often overlooked). But just because it's a jeep? Not so much...