MikeOK

Hi guys, i just came home from a couple days of wheeling at SMORR. I drug bottom several times today and I knocked my steering out of wack. It wanders pretty bad, and a few times at highway speed it would start fishtailing. Pretty bad. My steering wheel is off center, will fix that tomorrow. Anything else I should check? Everything looks okay with a quick visual. Nothing appears to be bent.

mr72

I don't see any way you could "knock [your] steering out of whack" and wind up with it not centered without bending or breaking something.

I am not sure what you mean by "fishtailing"... that behavior is usually indicative that you are spinning the rear tires and the rear end then slips laterally perpendicular to the direction of travel. In your case I would guess it means something else entirely, like the axle is not fixed left-to-right and the frame is allowed to shift laterally side to side because of the flexing of the springs.

Given what you said about steering not centered coupled with lateral instability, I'd have to guess you probably sheared or lost the fixing bolt at one end of the front track bar. Of course then the track bar would be floating in space, I think you'd notice, hear a big clunk all the time, etc. Who knows. But for sure you broke or bent something, potentially more than one thing.

MikeOK

Could you elaborate on the front trackbar please? By fishtailing I mean it will wander right or left, then I correct the opposite way and it overcorrects, then back the other way, then it just repeats getting worse with every correction unril I get it shut down.

MikeOK

In the picture, is the trackbar the bottom black bar and is it supposed to have that bend? This connects to the pitman arm on passenger side.

MikeOK

Here’s another picture. The bottom bar appears to be bent up slightly, is this the trackbar? It connects to the pitman arm on the drivers side not passenger. This bar hangs lower than anything else and I did hit it on big rocks a couple times.

mr72

Thats the tie rod. Whether or not it's bent a little there won't cause the behavior you describe.

You should see this thread to get educated about the components of the front suspension and what they do.
https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/jk-w...obbles-260145/

Inspect the track bar and make sure it's attached at both ends.

MikeOK

Thanks for that link mr72. I watched the death wobble vid and mine is nothing like that. I tried a little adjusting on the tie rod and I improved it, but it is still not right. At highway speed if I hit a bump or got beside a semi throughing out rough air it would veer to one or the other side, then when I corrected it would oversteer to the opposite side, then this would repeat back and forth getting more severe at every cycle until I could get it shut down. At 50 mph and below it didn’t do that. I have an appointment at my dealer this afternoon and I’ll report back what I find out.

mr72

Again, sounds like a track bar problem to me. IMHO it's unsafe to drive it in that state.

Smudgeontheglass

It does look like your tie rod is bent and it would explain the wondering issue. Now that it is bent it just acts like a spring. You could try taking of your steering stabilizer if you want to see if there are any unwanted vibrations. The dual setup you have will hide a lot of major issues.

mr72

No way. It's certainly rigid enough to position the wheels when turning. If it was repeatedly flexing enough to oscillate like this then it would fatigue in just a few seconds and break entirely.

I agree that part needs to be replaced, but there's no way it is the sole cause of a condition where a gross steering correction is required and the vehicle lacks lateral stability. Lateral positioning of the axle relative to the frame is the entire job of the track bar.