Whille this isn't a hydro thread, this is how you get an SOA job to steer well at highway speeds...
So after suffering with steering that was degenerating to non-functional, I took a good look at re-working the whole thing. This all started when my tie rod failed from fatigue. The ball joint simply pulled out the end of the tie rod. So I replaced all the junk, one piece at a time until all the slop was gone. Here is my recipe:
1. AGR Super Box
2. Rusty’s Steering for a YJ (modified for a CJ)
3. JKS Telescoping Track Bar (modified for a CJ)
4. Kustom mounting brackets for said Track Bar
5. Flaming River CJ Steering Shaft
6. Steering Box Brace
After replacing the steering linkage and tires, the Jeep only handled marginally better. The symptoms included wandering, bump steering and throttle induced directional changes.
Investigation revealed a loose steering box, loose wheel bearings and an extreme amount of toe-in. So I tightened things up and fixed the toe-in with one of my driveway alignments. But there was still a ton of bump steer and wandering.
So I did some more looking and found that there was so much slop in the spring bushings that a steering input shifted the axle a couple of inches before the wheels would begin to turn. It also meant that any bump would shift the axle laterally causing a self steering condition. Not fun at 70MPH. A track bar was the obvious solution, but no one makes one for a CJ. So I kludged one together from a YJ version. I chose a telescoping one from JKS and modified it to fit the narrower frame of a CJ. I fabed up and welded brackets to the frame and spring plate. The JKS bar uses heim ends. It includes steel inserts for the heims that I welded to my home-brewed brackets. This takes all the slop out of the heims and ensures they never get loose even if a bolt does. The telescoping feature allows me to loosen the clamp on the track bar to prevent binding off road by letting the track bar telescope inside itself. With this done, the axle no longer moved relative to the frame. But there was still slop in the steering. With a newish AGR Super Box and a steering brace, I tracked the problem down to slop in the steering shaft. I could have replaced the two joints in the shaft, but decided to just replace the whole shaft. It required removal of the steering box to get the old shaft out, but the new one went right in. The critical part is drilling indents for the set screws in the existing splines on both ends. That and locktight shouldn’t be skipped.
With that, the steering now has zero slop. Not bad for an SOA CJ on 2.5” springs.
-Mark and his '85 CJ-7 "Norm"
