Hey all, I need some advice on my drag link/ track bar angles. I am having a lot of bumpsteer. I have tried different track bars and pitman arms. I've done a tie rod conversion, had an alignment done, changed tires, and a new steering stabilizer. All of these things have helped it handle much better on the road but I just cant get rid of this bumpsteer. So i'm thinking it has to be an issue of angles (wouldnt suprise me if i'm way off).
If anyone can give me some advice I would really appreceate it. - 98 XJ with an 8 inch long arm lift, 34" tires, dropped pitman arm, dropped trac bar (rock crawler bomb proof)

 

Wow that's quite the angle lol. I think at that height you should be look at over the knuckle steering. In addition to moving the tie rod up over the steering knuckle, a kit like http://www.rustysoffroad.com/jeep-st...-steering.html both raises and moves out the end of the drag link up and over and makes it closer to stock.

 

new steering arm system?

 

well from bolt to bolt my trac bar is at more of an angle than the drag link so if I reduce the angle of my drag link without changing my trac bar any, would that make things worse? that over the knuckle steering kit is pretty sweet. the relocation of the trac bar would probably help a lot.

 

It looks (from the picture) to me like if you reduce the drop in your pitman arm (i.e. go back to stock), you will get your track bar and drag link back closer to parallel.

If you don't already know, to eliminate bump-steer you want parallel and equal length track-bar & drag links. You'll almost never get it perfect, but the closer you can get to the ideal situation, the less bump-steer you will have.

 

Winner! Winner!
Chicken Dinner!

 

I don't get what you guys mean by equal lengths trac bar and drag link ? How do you measure this?

 

Not the lengths, the angles. the mounting points of the trac bar should have the same angle as the mounting points of the drag link

 

If you are building (er...fabbing) up a custom front suspension, you want the ideal bolt-to-bolt length of the track bar to be equal to that of the properly adjusted drag link. As you are bolting on aftermarket parts, you don't really have too much control of that. What you DO have control over at this point is the parallel-nes (I don't think that is a word....) between the two.

Look at the picture you posted: See how on the axle side your track bar mount is BELOW where the drag link connects? Now look at the drivers side: See how the track bar mount is ABOVE where the pitman arm connects to the drag link? This is your problem. The easiest resolution for you is to change out the pitman arm with one with a shorter drop so that those 2 components make a "||" and not an "X" (i.e. if the axle side has the drag link connection above the track bar, then the driver's side should also have the drag link connection above the track bar).

Edit:
Here. You want Yellow and Red to be parallel, more like yellow and green.

 

x2 on ditching the drop pitman arm. although it will put your tie rod end on more of an angle. but really at that lift height, you should have some sort of hi-steer setup.

 

thanks for the advice! @the nerd, that diagram makes sense, I can see what you mean by going back to a lower drop pitman arm. I think thats gonna be the short term solution. looks like i'm gonna need to relocate the traction bar over the axle. does anyone know of a good kit that just includes the trac bar relocation without having to get a tie rod/drag link setup? I'd like to move that trac bar over the axle and then do a tie rod flip. I have heard of a really cheap method of doing the tie rod flip but I cant find much info about it. any ideas?

 

Here is a track bar kit:
http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/catalog/PANKIT.html

It has a few holes on each mount to give you more options to match drag link angle. I am running this kit minus the frame side mount, and it is working fine so far.
This does make the track bar shorter, though. The ideal set up is both equal angle and equal length, but if you have to choose, matching the angle will yield better results.

 

yeah that looks like a perfect setup. how much of a lift do you have on that?

 

http://mysite.verizon.net/res108eps/...ion-basics.pdf
....worth read!

 

Thanks. It is sitting at about 6.5" of lift.