Hey folks,

I need some help. I replaced the steering knuckle, upper ball joint tie rod end, and the hub on the passenger side of my 99 Grand Cherokee Laredo, and when my wife took it to be aligned this morning, the tech called me and said that the passenger side tire is leaning in towards the body at the top. The tech guy suggested I get an adjustable upper ball joint, but I want to know what the underlying issue is, not stick a band-aid on it and just pray it holds up.
Anyone got any ideas as to what the issues could be that are causing this?

Thanks for any help,
Gene

 

I'm pretty sure there is no camber or caster adjustment on your GC. Camber being what the tech is referring to. The typical cause of it being out of spec would be something bent or worn somewhere. To correct the issue either requires replacing the bent/worn part or using an offset/adjustable ball joint.

 

From the diagram and how the tech described it to me, I have "lots" of negative camber. Before I swapped the upper ball joint on that side, it was wayyyy worse than it is now however.

 

Determined after searching around a bit on Google, that there is a TSB on the front ends of all XJ, ZJ, and WJ from 1993 to 2004 for the axles being out of spec and the upper ball joints needing to be replaced with adjustable ball joints. These adjustable ball joints add 2 degrees of camber/caster depending on which way you press them in the axle/knuckle. They can be rotated to provide more/less and here is a link to a web writeup on how to change them. Hope this helps the next person in line that has these issues.

www.madxj.com , click on technical on the left side, the scroll down to the 3rd article from the top, titled Installing (Adjustable) Ball Joints .

Good luck and great Jeepin.

Gene