Vincenza V

I have a Zone 3" lift, pucks on the front and the cursed AAL/Bastard pack hybrid on the rear. 5.5" of lift approximately. I now get all the jokes about RC.

I have the RC 4-6" trackbar with drop bracket. They said I NEEDED the drop bracket one at my lift. This is my first 4x4 and lifted vehicle, so I bought it.

I have a picture here on my XJ on jackstands (the unibody is anyway), the front axle is freely floating below. I removed the left wheel so you can see it better than just from them front like it is commonly seen.

I am new, so I may have my understanding incorrect of the track bar and draglink/pitman arm relationship. I heard it is not the trac bars "bend" that had to match the drag link necessarily, but if you draw an imaginary line between the "bolt holes" of the two bars, THIS is what needs to be as close as possibe to being in line with each other.

Would removing my "Drop Bracket" for the track bar, and installing the factory trackbar brack improve their relationship? I'd keep the same adjustable 4-6" track bar for now of course. Would it fix some of the bump steer I am having?

I do have a RC drop pitman arm installed by the way.

I hope the image works. Photo Bucket is not showing me my traditional codes-

http://s178.photobucket.com/albums/w...er_media_share

http://s178.photobucket.com/albums/w...er_media_share

Please help!

SeriousOffroad

Picture from the front with the tires on the ground please.

AeroSynch

Do you have a picture from the front of the Jeep so we could see the angles?

Edit: Frank beat me to it.

Juan4you

You want these two parallel

pass.side



driver side

SeriousOffroad

need to see the entire front end from wheel to wheel.

Vincenza V

I'll take a pix like that shortly. Thank you!

Vincenza V

Wheels on ground. passenger side first. Are the Bolt Holes supposed to be in line, or the bars themselves (This would confuse me because aren't the bends in the track bar to make clearance for the oil pan or something?)



Driver side. It seems if I removed the "track bar drop bracket" and reinstalled the factory bracket (with the same RC 4-6" track bar mind you) it would improve the alignment of the drag-link/track bar on the Drivers Side, but make the alingment of the bars on the Passenger Side Worse???? Remember, you are dealing with a Newbie here so please be as clear in your description to help me as you can. Thank you! I have never ridden in a lifted truck before (aftermarket lift that is...) so I don't know how it is supposed to feel when you hit bumps in the road. On smooth roads, the Jeep rides great.

hankthetank

I'd rather see both front wheels in one shot...then you can upload to paint and literally draw the lines between points...

DeftwillP

this

TheNerd

This seems to come up a lot: Below is a pic from someone else who was having problems. The red line drawn is the drag link (end-to-end), and the yellow line is the track bar. The goal is always to have these 2 lines parallel and equal length to completely eliminate bump steer. In this case, the guy installed a drop pitman arm that he shouldn't have, and the green line was there to represent the ideal position of the drag link (notice it terminates right about where the stock pitman arm would end).

Bump steer is all about the geometry. You will probably never get perfectly parallel & equal lengths of your track bar/drag link, but you want to get as close as possible. Just like in Ghostbusters, what you DON'T want to do is cross the streams....er beams....er, whatever.

You are correct that the "bends" don't mean anything... it is the end-to-end relationship. As you mention you did install the drop pitman arm, my bet is that this is your problem as well. From my experience, it is a rare situation when you need to install the drop pitman, (and I've never seen it needed with bolt-on mods).

Vincenza V

TheNerd-thanks for the input

Sorry guys, I'll take a wheel to wheel shot Friday and maybe then TheNerd or anyone else can see if I need to swap back t a factory pitman arm or something

Vincenza V

TheNerd-I compared my picture (driver side) to your pic (driver side) and my pic has the track bar side lower than the pitman arm. Does that mean to "raise it to match the dropped pima arm I should go back to a non-dropped track bar bracket? It seems a factory pitman arm would hurt me more comparing the two.

It seems by looking at my pic, either a dropped pitman arm that is dropped MORE (which I know is bad and NOT preferred) or a factory height track bar bracket would align the two bars as close to each other as you can go w/o customer bracket for the track bar?

Driver X

If you got the double shear track bar with drop bracket, RC recommends a drop pitman arm. This will keep the two imaginary lines parallel and reduce bump steer.

TheNerd

Post the requested pic and we can take a look. I don't have RC stuff, but it appears as if their drop trackbar bracket is double-shear. I assume you replaced the factory parts (which is a single-shear design) and therefore incompatible with your RC trackbar. If that is the case, your simplest options are to either get a new double-shear trackbar bracket with less or no drop; or to get a new pitman arm with even more drop.

xjpettit99

I am running the same track bar and am very pleased with it. You definatly will have to keep the extended bracket due to it being a double shear type. It probably just needs some adjustments made to the hiem joint on the lower track bar mount.