Thetastycat

Hey all - thanks for reading this. I put a HP44 out of a 79 F250 into my 95 XJ. It's very hard to keep it on the road at any kind of speed and I realized that the driver's side knuckle is extremely hard to turn by hand even when nothing is attached to it. I've taken it apart and back together several times, every time following the torque specs I found on a guide from ifsja.org that seems pretty good - it says put on the knuckle, tighten the nut on the bottom ball joint to 75, then tighten the upper sleeve thing to 50, then the large nut on top to 100. Things go OK until I start to get that top nut tight, and then the knuckle gets harder and harder to turn by hand. Interestingly, on the other side, it's fairly hard to turn that knuckle UNTIL I start tightening that top nut and then it gets easier.

I did try an experiment and put the driver's side knuckle on the passenger side (and vice versa) and it did just fine - moved very easily. The passenger knuckle on the driver's side had the same problem. So it does seem like it might be a bent C, which is a real pain.

Just now when I put it back together (for the 5th time) even the passenger knuckle didn't want to move easily, so I'm about as lost as last year's easter egg. I did replace the upper ball joint (which was already brand new) on the driver's side but had the exact same issue.

I'm so ready for this thing just to be driveable without taking my life in my hands! Sure appreciate any wisdom you've got on this.

tech

some way to the noise would help

Thetastycat

Hey tech - thanks for the reply. I've been meaning to post back since I did get it figured out - turns out that inner sleeve (also called the preload nut) needs to be in just the right spot. All I found wherever I looked were torque specs, all the way from 25 to 100, but nowhere did it say "you just need to keep fiddling with it until it's right." I did find a spec that said the force necessary to move the knuckle, measured from the tie rod hole, was not to exceed 26 pounds, so I bought an Amazon fish scale, and of course mine were all over 50. On the drivers' side, I ended up tightening the preload nut WAY down into the knuckle (retightening the top nut to 100 every time since that drastically changes things) and eventually got it to turn with just 13 pounds. The passenger side was another story - there was a sweet spot maybe 1/4" down from flush where I got it to 19 pounds, but any higher or lower and it would increase.

So - in case anyone else has had this problem, move that nut a little, retighten the top nut, and measure! Fish scale was like 20-25 bucks and I WILL be keeping that around - handy!