RedneckJeep

Crooked mechanics used to and some still do use large channel lock pliers to "squeeze" the tie rod ends against the spindle knuckle. The tire rod joint is spring loaded, so you will see up and down movement in a brand new tie rod joint. You should NOT however be able to make any of this movement by hand. If you can do more than rotate the tie rod back and forth by hand, something is definately wrong.

MELONHED

It's strictly rotational movement around the ball but, very easily done by hand.

MELONHED

The clunk I have is tolerable, just annoying. It isn't always present, mostly like I said before under 40 mph, usually going over small bumps or joints in the pavement. If I wasn't so picky, I probably wouldn't let it bother me. I guess I'll do the steering shaft boot grease and see what that does. I really think it's coming from farther down below though. I know it's the tie rod bouncing up and down (rotating).

Is it possibly something loose with the steering stabilizer? I'll check that next.

MELONHED

Anymore news on this?

https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/show...ht=ball+joints

Renegade

Yup, that's normal.

Gear

I know exactly what you are talking about. Here is what I found. I believe it is the AC line running across the front cross member. On small bumps it would bounce up and create that sound similar to your tie rod bounce. Trust me, I think this is it. Go take a look. I simple added some double sided adhesive to the cross member with 2 more zip ties. The noise is gone. Here are two photographs looking forward towards the front bumper.

MELONHED

Mine came already fastened down from the factory.

Gear

MELONHED
Mine was fastened down with the middle zip tie as well. It was the right zip tie that stopped the annoying noise. Heck my Jeep was making so much noise that the Jeep Service Rider warranted the tie rod. On the drive home the noise was still there. The tie rod all thought it had a lot of up and down movement was not the source of the noise. At one point I used a bungee cord to tie the tie rod up so that I could isolate the noise. The noise was still there. Best bet is to get under the Jeep and start touching thinks to see if something is making contact with something else. Good Luck!

ldwilbanks

I also had the clunk coming from somewhere. I recently installed a 3 in. lift, so I crawled under and noticed the tie-rod movement. The movement in the area should be normal. I was skeptical about the steering clunk being fixed by adding grease to the boot on the shaft, however I did do this mod and after adding some additional grease, can't feel the clunk. My clunk was felt in the steering wheel and in the pedals. I drive on Oil/Gas lease roads all day and today after the mod last night, no clunk. I did go to the dealership this morning and the service manager, fixes this clunk all the time on jeeps and chevy pickups, same problem fixed with good grease. I am not sure if you have read the recent posts on the grease mod., so here it is again. If you plan on removing the shaft to grease the boot, please secure your steering wheel. If not, you will be spending and addtional $400.00 to replace the broken airbag coil in your steering wheel. The steering wheel only rotates 1.5 turns from center either way, but without the shaft, it will rotate freely until the coil snaps. Going to my original dealer next week at home and hopefully they will warranty the airbag coil.

MELONHED

Thanks, everyone. So where is the best place to get an injectable 5th wheel grease? Sounds like the Amsoil one is the best one to use? Can that one be injected? I don't think I want to take the shafts apart. Sorry if this has all been covered before. This is the one one thing (in 9 months 15,000 miles) that is wrong/annoying on my Rubi, other than the clunk, it has been absolutely awesome. Just wanna get rid of the clunk.