so I replaced my worn upper and lower ball joints and did the tie rod and drag link ends at the same time since they were also starting to get worn. After the installation I sent the car directly to get alligned. On th way back home the JK seemed to wander in a really
wierd way pulling sometime to the left and others to the right.
someone had this after such replacements? could it be a bad allignement?

P.S. the drag link used to have some some rotational play which i know is normal. after replacing it no play whatsoever. is this normal?

 

anyone?? any ideas?

 

No answers, just questions. How hard was to change the ball joints? I am a beginning mechanic. Is this something I could tackle?

 

Actually i found it a big hassle to change the ball joints but with the right tools you should be ok. lower ball joints are the most difficult to remove. you should consider at least 3hrs for one side and 1h30min for the other side since you learn a lot from the first side.

 

Without driving it, I would guess toed out to much.

 

Check the torque of all your fasteners again and make sure you installed the safety pins otherwise nuts will work themselves loose. This could be what's causing issues...

 

The only time I experienced my JK wandering, for no apparent reason, was when the caster was out of specs. Another sign of caster problems is that the steering wheel is slow to self center when coming out of a turn. In extreme cases, the steering wheel will not self center at all. The most common way to correct this problem is with adjustment of the control arms to tilt the axle in the correct direction, which is normally 4-6 degrees to the rear. If you are not having problems with the steering wheel not self centering, it's probably not the caster. If you go to a shop that specializes in alignments, they will provide you with a computer print out that shows you what the readings for caster, camber and toe were before the alignment and what the reading are after they completed the alignment - and if they can't correct any or all of the problems, that fact is supposed to be highlighted and called to your attention. Go to a shop that uses laser equipment to take the alignment readings. Any brand name tire store usually has laser equipment.

 

I have seen this happen when a ball joint was damaged and it was extremely tight.
With both front tires off the ground and the steering column unlocked grab one of the tires, you should be able to turn the wheels left and right pretty easily.

 

Here's what I'm planning to do on monday:
1st : change the front upper control arms bushings since the shop said they were pretty damaged this might be causing the change in camber and retighten everything related to the ball joints replacement I did.
2nd : since I'm there will change the trackbar bushings too.
3rd : rotate the tires and get it rebalanced
4th : take the JK to a different allignement shop to get a new allignement.

Anything else i should consider??

 

Check to make sure you're brake calipers aren't sticking. The camber on JK's is fixed. You can adjust caster with adjustable control arms. You might consider doing the alignment yourself. It's really quite simple. Here's a great write up: http://project-jk.com/jeep-jk-write-...-end-alignment