Hello! Newbie here with a few questions. I am hoping to make use of your knowlege to help diagnose my front end issues on my 91 XJ Limited.

I am new to the Jeep world, so thi smay be somewhat normal, but my Jeep seems what I would call "squirrely" on the highway. it's not out of alignment, but it seems to want to track with every slight degree in change of the road surface. There doesn't seem to be much play in the steering though.

Also, the guy I bought it from replaced the transfer case and sid that when he put it all back together, the Jeep would vibrate going down the road, and made noises and such when turning. he took the front driveshaft off and just drove it like that. He thought the Driveshaft was out of balance, but it was balanced before, shouldn't it still be balanced?

This may be part of the same issue as the above part, but any bump I hit, I get pops from the front end (both sides) like a ball joint or something.

I want to get it all straightened out and have it working correctly, but I am not sure where to look first. I have a tight budget, so I want to try to do as much of the work as I can myself. thanks!

 

Check for play in everything. Ball joints, all tie rod ends, all bushings, everything.

Sounds like it could be ball joints or the tre on the trac bar.

Both could cause wandering and popping.

 

I'm assuming you have the 231 TC? Only has "part time" hi 4wd as opposed to the 242 which has both part and full time 4 hi.
So, either way, it does sound like its just a worn out CV shaft. I replaced mine for 80 bucks from the JY. It takes removing the 8x 8mm (I think) bolts from my yokes and in goes the "new" shaft. But, as Gee said, it sounds like its time to replace some stuff. The clunk/pop you mentioned is probably a bad wheel joint. But, once again I agree with Gee in that its a collection of parts. Even your control arms/bushings will effect the handling.

 

More thoughts...

Did you put the front drive shaft back in? It may not be out of balance, it may just need new ujoints, which would give bad vibes like it was out of balance.

 

I don't think XJs came with CV shafts. Just axles with ujoints. But if the removal of the front drive shaft solved the vibes, the axle ujoints should be fine, its more likely a ujoint in the drive shaft.

In 2wd an axle ujoint will still make noise, vibrate, etc. So maybe the popping is an axlu ujoint? Unlikely, but possible.

 

This has the 2wd, part time, hi, low. I know he said he had a hard time finding hte right one and when he did the speedo plug wouldn't work because this one was different style(newer year of donor), so I don't have a speedo at the moment. Thank goodness for GPS.

The only vibration I have in 2wd is when I get about 65, and I think that is just the tires need to be replaced, and out of balance.

I haven't put the shaft back on yet, I just got it last friday and haven't had the time yet. hopefully this weekend.

Sounds like I have some work cut out for me. Are the Haynes manuals pretty good for these? The only work I have done on 4x4s is replacing the hub assembly and cv on my wife's Exploder. So, this will be an education.

 

If you have the drive shaft out of your rig, check the u-joints and the shaft splines before you reinstall the drive shaft. You should be able to tell if there is any play in the joints or splines with the shaft out of your Cherokee.
If the joints, splines, or the cardan joint are bad replace them before installing the d-shaft.

 

Thanks! I will. I can't wait to get it straightened out and get some mud on it.