888

I remember those trucks, 79 was the era you could watch and hear GM trucks rusting on a quiet night where I live. My 76 Scout was maybe 6 years old when I got it and the top had already rusted to the point that the side windows fell out. The PO told me the rear "hatch" window did the same thing as your pickup box when the Scout went over a bump in the highway except it landed in the lane behind him, the glass shattered and it slid off the road. When I bought it, we took a Sawzall and cut the roof off right behind the front seats. The rear seat was long gone, the mounting points rusted away. Did I mention it was Ziebarted?

That thing was the biggest POS, besides the rust it had a 200 slant 4 sitting on the oil pan for the 400 V8 truck/school bus engine. Starter weighed about 50lbs, it was also used on the Caddy Eldorado V8. No balance shaft on the engine, the gear shift would sting your hand at idle. Speaking of the gear shift, it had a 4 speed with a 1st that was not quite a granny because you couldn't launch in 2nd, but you were in and out of 1st in less than a second. It must have been a dump truck tranny that needed a load in first that the Scout didn't provide. It never started reliably in any weather, if I hadn't been close enough to walk to work I would have lost my job. Sometimes I would turn the key to off when it was cranking and it wouldn't respond, I had to jump out and pull the neg cable to try to save the battery.

Back on topic for a moment, I took a day off of work to see if I can sort out what's going on with the Jeep. I'll try to report back later. I'm trying to get it high enough in the air with a jack to unload the front wheels via the unibody, I may just try to lightly support the front axle and see what that tells me.

dave1123

Sorry guys, I just HAVE to throw this in. I served on the USS Wasp CVS-18, built in 1943 with war-time reclaimed steel. In 1965, the Navy decommissioned her and cut her up for scrap. Guess who bought the steel? General Motors had that steel in the 75 to 80 model cars, which rusted away if you looked at them wrong.

888

I would have put money on Harbor Freight.

Okay, I have the Jeep up in the air the best I can without dragging down a whole lot more wood blocks from up on the hill where my outdoor furnace is located. I have it blocked on the unibody rails and jacks on the front axle so at least the wheels are off of the ground.

Here is how it is set up right now.

Example of blocking:



Jacks under front axle:



If I need to block the unibody to unload the front wheels for a true test, I can do that.

For now, I've given everything that has bushings/connections a good shake and twist to get anything to move and show play. Everything feels tight.

I shook the front wheels as hard as I could and I get no play in the top to bottom camber direction and very very slight movement in the caster/toe direction, equal on both sides.

I did notice something when doing the wheel test. It appears to me that the toe is way off, the front wheel on the driver's side seems to be splayed out compared to the pass side. That's the way it drives, as well, constant chasing and fighting itself when driving.

I tried to shoot a few photos to show it using the trim line on the fender as a guide but probably didn't catch it.

Pass side:



Driver's side.



I'm inclined to have an alignment done before doing much else with it. Any comments/suggestions?

Oh, and here's the Jeep:





Thanks

Joe

dave1123

If you can physically SEE it, it's wrong. My WJ's right front tie rod end pulled out of the sleeve because the PO hadn't tightened the clamp bolt. When I got it home, I got it straight by eyeball and then took it for an alignment. The report said I had it within 0.05*. Pretty good for an old guy with glasses and a tape measure!

I eventually replaced the tie rod end and the adjusting sleeve because the threads on the rod end had been flattened out enough so I was concerned it wouldn't hold the adjustment, assuming the threads in the sleeve were the same.

This was all because of a botch by the PO.

888

Thanks for the reply. I can see this one and it matches what I feel through the steering wheel. I'll see what it takes to make an adjustment, I don't usually mess with suspension much. I'm an old guy with glasses and a tape measure so I can give it a try and see what happens. It can't get that much worse, this thing drives terribly.

I don't know what started this, nothing feels sloppy, the PO is in Ecuador for a month, and he may not remember anyway. I wonder if it started back when a local do it all tire/service shop replaced the front stabilizer......

dave1123

You can set the toe-in by loosening the tierod end clamps and removing the steering damper bolt. Then turn the tube to change the adjustment. I set mine by measuring the distance between the tire centerline (tread groove) so I had about 1/4 to 1/2 inch difference between the front and rear. You'll need someone to hold the "dumb" end of the tape as you do this, With the Jeep jacked the way you have it, it should be easy to measure at axle centerline without bending the tape over things like the oil pan. It looks like you have at least 1 inch toe-out at present. If the tires are worn on the inside of the tread, it's been this way for a while. If not, I suspect you have a loose tierod end (bad thread).

Mine was so bad I had my son hold one wheel and I kicked the other until it was back straight. I amazed myself that I got so close by kicking it. I then tighten the clamp bolt until I thought it would break and drove it to my fix-it guy to have it done right. Slowly and not turning the wheel when stopped.

888

Thanks for the reply, I'll have a look at it this evening. I checked the tires and they are not worn in any unusual manner that I could see. They look pretty even.

It appears and drives like it is toed way out, and it's probably what you have mentioned. I can't imagine anyone set it or left it like this. Although, the PO had a local chain place look at it and they said Jeeps just drive like this. I can't believe that, if so, no one would own one. This thing is a handful.

888

I only have a few more days of insurance left from my "automatic 2 weeks free coverage after purchase" so I decided to take it uptown for an alignment, figuring it would need one anyway to fine tune whatever I did to it.

Findings? Steering box binds in one direction, one U joint is totally shot, tie rod ends are okay. The guy knows Jeeps and know the tie rod end problems pretty well. I'm surprised by the U joint, they were shown as being replaced on the service records not all that long ago. I know the shop so I trust them, I did tell him that the PO had cranked on the steering box adjustment to deal with the wandering problem so try to back it off and see if it helped any. If not, I'm just going to have to deal with the steering as it is, I can't afford to have them replace the box. The other work is going to be pricey enough.

I'll update when I know more but this is what I've learned so far. So much for the bargain Jeep, but I guess that's always the case on a used vehicle. All you can do is check for service records and know what you can about the PO.

dave1123

When guys say they replaced the u-joints, sometimes it gets confusing because some Jeeps have as many 7 u-joints, with the front axle joints and the two driveshafts. Besides, If they weren't greased properly before assembly, they can fail prematurely, especially the axle joints. I like the "Blue" grease (I'm having a senior moment because I can't remember the brand!) because of it's ability to flow at extremely low temperatures. We used it on snowmobiles and it worked well. I just packed in into the caps until it squeezed out before putting it together. I sometimes had to c-clamp them until the pressure leaked enough for the caps to stay seated. That way I knew they had as much as they would take. I know they come pregreased, but it's only enough to keep the rollers in place. The ones that have grease fittings need to be greased before you install the driveshaft because they usually don't have enough room for a standard grease gun to fit after installation.

All right. I think I've pushed this to the limit. Sorry to ramble on, but it may help someone understand how important grease is.

888

Makes sense, all the service records say is front U joint left and front U joint right so I assumed they were the axle. The service records are with the Jeep so I can't look at details on dates but they weren't all that long ago. Apparently someone didn't do something right so one of them is bad now. The place that probably did the work is a local Firestone tire/repair franchise type place called Grismers, don't know how many there are outside this area. The steering gearbox adjustment nut and set screw apparently do not move or move correctly so the steering box is somehow causing the steering to bind one way and move freely the other.

Not sure how that can happen via the steering box but I passed on the $620 to replace the box (almost what I paid for the Jeep) and had them do the U joint and alignment. I'll see how she drives when I get it back later today we can and go from there. Hopefully, it doesn't chase the road and I can handle driving it as is. I've downloaded a few procedures on replacing the steering gear and Rock Auto has them for good prices so we'll see how it goes.

Regarding the grease, the dark blue bearing grease I have at home is made by Valvoline IIRC, I've had a tub of it for years. We use the red Lucas greases here in our machines and that is what I typically use on most applications. It meets the NLGI requirements in the manuals and has worked well on everything I've used it on.

dave1123

Well, how do you like that? I once worked for Valvoline. That must have been where I got it. We used it on snowmobiles because of it low temp flexibility. Everything else got stiff in the snow.

888

I got the Jeep back last night and it's much better, actually gets up to 55 without fighting itself. However, the handling still not quite right. The wheels still seem to be way too sensitive to steering wheel input, any slight adjustment at the wheel is really evident in the steering. I asked about the steering box and the guy said when the locknut was backed off, there was only a half turn or so adjustment in each direction before the set screw bound up.

I verified that the design is the same as old school air cooled VW beetles (he and I are both old enough to have worked on those). I have the same thing on my Cummins truck and I adjusted it a few years back to take out a little play. I've never run across a bound up set screw on a worm gear style steering box before.

If anyone would be willing to take a rough measurement of the amount the set screw protrudes from the locknut on a good box, I would appreciate it. The only thing I can think of is that the PO over adjusted the set screw down and the end inside the box got somehow distorted by the action of the worm gear and cannot make it back through the threads in the box. I could file flats on the end sticking out and use a wrench to force the set screw up and out but I suspect the set screw is harder than the housing and will trash the housing threads.

Has anyone seem this before or have an idea what might be behind it?

TIA

Joe

888

Well, I'm a little put out. I spent some time looking at the Jeep last night and the wheels still appear to be toed out pretty far, not much different than before. I'm going to call the guy who did the alignment just to be sure there is nothing he saw as being a problem other than the U joint. Both front U joints were replaced in the last 40k miles.

I did check the steering box and the set screw will not back out any further. I moved in it a quarter turn to see what it does.

dave1123

It steering box is what's known as "recirculating ball", that is the actual gear teeth are ball bearings. The set screw just centers the sector with the worm so the ball path is round. Once the ball path becomes elliptical, there isn't much that can be done to fix it.

I hit a rock with my Chevy truck and stattered some of the ***** in my box. The steering became very weird and you could hear a crunching sound from the box. After I replaced it, I tore apart the old one. I don't know how I drove it home, it was so bad.

Just for grins, put a tape measure on your tires and see if the distance between the front and rear is within 1/4 to 1/2 inch, shorter in the front. If it is, it's possible your front axle is out of alignment.

888

Well, I had convinced myself the toe was out looking at the wheels versus the fenders, when I got underneath there and measured, the toe is approximately 1/16" closer on the front versus the rear, exactly as it should be. I'm comfortable with the measurements, I made sure I was at the same point when doing them and they repeated exactly. I think the inward bow of the fenders was deceiving me. So that's not what is my problem is.

I can see where the front tie rod barrel was adjusted when the alignment was done and the new U joint installed, they checked the tie rod ends etc while they were in there, knowing it had a wandering problem.

I also took a small pry bar and tried to get movement out of the LCAs and anywhere else I could reach on any connections/joints up front and couldn't get anything other than some lateral movement from the LCAs, it was hard to get much leverage on them front to back.

So I can measure between the front and rear wheels to look for differences there. It seems that for the front axle to move or twist in motion which is the way the Jeep drives, it almost has to be something like the control arms. The bushing on the LCA must be fairly soft to allow the easy lateral movement I am seeing so I'm thinking about replacing them since they are original at 170k miles, aren't that expensive, and appear to be fairly easy to replace.

I'm stumped and open to suggestions.

Thanks