mchulse

Howdy y'all, I'm going through a new-to-me 2001 Jeep XJ that came from the mid-Atlantic region and one thing I found kinda alarming is that the steering knuckles look to be about rusted through. Maybe living in AZ and Central Texas these past 18 years has made me soft on these matters but the knuckles look like they just came off the Titanic. After removing lose rust with a wire brush drill bit I see there are huge metal layers like a stack of papers folding out and parts that have become really thin. So two questions:

- Is the car safe to drive with knuckles in this bad of shape? I mean.. what could possibly go wrong right, it just hold the calipers on.

- Is there a technique to change the knuckles without doing a ball joint job? Surprisingly the ball joints seem to be doing just fine. I went through that job over the summer with my 2WD XJ and remember when you disconnect the knuckle from the axle part of the ball joint will likely be attached. Prefer not to do that job again unless necessary.

P.S. "Rusty Knuckles" sounds like a sweet name for a Southern Metal band.

dzywicki

That sounds really scary. It's not too bad to get the knuckles off. Based on what you said, the hard part will be getting the hub out. It is a tight fit and can be a bear to get out. Once that is out, the knuckle comes out pretty easily with a few whacks of a hammer. Should not affect the ball joints at all.While you are in there, I would look at replacing the hubs and u-joints on the front drive shaft. do a search for hub removal, there are a variety of tips and tricks.

BwanaBob

Since you live in Texas, you have access to junkyards with rust-free
D30s for low prices. You might just swap one of those in. Pick one in
good shape from a 1991-1999 XJ and you'll have a high pinion which,
if you ever lift the Jeep, is less likely to have driveline vibes than the
low-pinion D30 that came in the 2000-2001 years. From 96 on the D30
had bigger u-joints.

You could keep that rusty D30 for spare parts. You could use the axle
shafts and u-joints from it (since it has the bigger u-joints) if you get an
early D30 (before 96).

PatHenry

What could go wrong.. well the wheel could disconnect from the steering and possibly roll the Jeep for one...

Probably it's not going to happen, but folds of metal sounds really bad.

I've had the opposite experience - getting the hubs out is not bad with the socket-in-the-axle-ear trick, but getting the rusty knuckle off the ball joints was absolute hell for me the first time I did it on my 95. I was on the verge of cutting the ball joints before it finally came off on one side (after a couple hours of hammering and torching the other side and then over an hour of hammering and torching that side).

New knuckles are about $100 each, but you get tight tapers on the tie rods and ball joints and fresh sliding surfaces for the calipers (so no screwing around trying to weld the grooves)... I did mine recently and don't regret spending the money.

Definitely agree that you should do the u-joints/hubs/brakes etc while you've got it apart. I would even say just put new ball joints in anyway just to be sure (and not have to deal with it again anytime soon).

4.3L XJ

I hear ya on that rust. To take the knuckles off, remove the brakes, pull the unit bearing and axle. You can take them out in one piece, take the nuts off the ball joints. Remove the tie rod using a pickle fork, which will damage the rubber boot, or the best way is to use a tie rod puller. You can rent those or buy. Then take a big hammer, bigger the better, and hit the steering arm as close to the ball joints as possible. It will drop down.

mchulse

Thanks for the recommendation, considering one of the shock mounts and spring seats are looking pretty thin/eaten through this seems like a pretty good idea. It looks like my local LKQ has a 99' 4x4 XJ available and charge $120 for an axle assembly... now just need to figure out how to pull it off myself and get it to my house. I'm pretty strong but probably not strong enough to beast that thing into my old XJ (~200 lbs maybe?).