Greetings, I'm a long time BMW enthusiast and home mechanic and this is my first SUV/truck. It's definitely a different ownership experience but I'm enjoying the contrasts so far. I've already fixed a couple of small issues that it came to me with, but I've got two new problems that I'd like some more experienced opinions on:

1) One morning I got in the car and started it, then put my foot on the brake to release the parking brake. I immediately noticed that the brake pedal went down much further to the floor than before. It's stayed that way for a few days now and never gone back to feeling right. I do not seem to have much if any diminished braking capability (nothing that stuck out to me in day to day operation, at least), just a pedal that goes way down to the floor.

Among other possibilities, preliminary research leads me to think my master cylinder is on it's way out. I have several days off from work coming up at the end of this week and would like to be ordering parts in the next couple of days so I can effect repairs. What do you think?

2) I went out and had a blast in the blizzard that hit us yesterday (Snow has always been an enemy when you're driving a 2800lb rear wheel drive BMW that's 6 inches off the ground and has wide tires). In the many hours I was out I did some donuts (pavement+grass, 2wd+4wd), much snowy road driving through varying depths, took a couple running starts to knock through a drift, and did some light wheeling off road in the snow. I now notice that when driving straight my steering wheel is canted roughly 90 degrees to the left; to put it perfectly straight causes me to veer to the right a small amount.

When I bought the Cherokee, it was more or less properly aligned with regards to wheels and steering wheel. I've gotten outside with the steering wheel in both positions and observed that the pitman arm appears to be straight in both cases, and that the wheels are (obviously) very slightly aimed toward the right when the wheel is properly aligned (maybe the passenger side moreso than the driver's?). I also had a noticeable shake at 60mph on the highway when I got on for 1 exit today. Is it possible to have knocked my steering out of alignment as described through my antics in the snow? If so, how did I do it and how do I fix it? Can you strip the pitman arm's mounting method somehow, did my drag link and/or tie rod get ****ed with, or did I break something? I'd like to know if I need a repair, 15 minutes in the driveway, or if I can just get it realigned at a shop for $90 and be done with it.

Thanks for any help.

 

Anyone?

 

Brake pedal issue- when was last time rears were checked and adjusted ? As for steering possible bent tie rod from hitting driftszyesterday upgrade to the v8 grand cherokee rod helps avoid this .

 

I've had the XJ for only a couple of weeks, I've never played with the rear brakes. Is the adjusting you're talking about the several forward and reverse stops that are supposed to invoke the self-adjustment?

I will go out and look at my tie rod/other steering parts now; I looked at everything before to see if there was any noticeable changes to the threads at the adjustment points but didn't see anything that jumped out at me. I'll have another look though.

Thanks for the help.

 

No adjuusting is done thru slot in backing pplate at each rear wheel .Self adjusters rarely work after a few years

 

Good instructions here ....

 

Ah, same method for adjusting the parking brake on the bimmer. I'll have to get out there to check it out as soon as possible but the snow impedes progress a lot.

Is your guess that the brakes could be so poorly adjusted that the pedal has to go all the way to the floor to make up the slack in the adjustment? How would this have happened overnight when the car operated normally one night and then started acting up when I turned it on in the morning?

 

All the way to floor was not said in first post id pull drums after checking lines for leakage mist of snapped some thing playing in the snow . Also has e brake operation changed any ?

 

Sorry, I misspoke. It does not go ALL the way to the floor as I can still brake and stop, but it goes down much further than it did when I bought it and used it for the first couple of weeks.

The brakes became an issue a day or two before the snow happened so it cannot be related to my snow antics. E brake is adjusted and working properly. This doesn't sound like something related to the master cylinder?

Thanks so far.

 

Push brake pedal down does it staysteady or slowly creap down ? creapi ng is a good sign of bypassing internaly. xHave you check fluid yet ?

 

.....flaccid

 

Right ...lol...

 

 

 

Master cylinder reservoir was empty, filled it up turned it on and pumped the pedal several times, topped off fluid again and it's back to normal. When it first happened I didn't see a stain commensurate with how much fluid I lost and quickly I lost it anywhere. I'm going to give it a few days and see if I lose it again and go from there. Now there's just the steering problem.

None of the steering components seemed bent when I went out there.

As a side note, having an american car is a really nice change of pace. At Advance Auto I got 10qts of synthetic motor oil, 30oz of brake fluid, an oil filter and an air filter for $78.