Front steering and suspension rust questions

casm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 29, 2006 5:05 pm **Posts:** 694

This one might be best answered by folks who live in places that have salted roads. 2005 KJ CRD Limited, for reference.

I'm in the middle of getting the lift in. One thing that I noticed last week when I started bathing every fastener that might need it in PB Blaster: the steering knuckles and clevis are rusted to a somewhat surprising extent.

As far as the knuckle goes, it's not a huge deal, but that ABS sensor is never coming out of there short of some very powerful and very destructive drilling. It took a day of pressure and persuasion on both sides to get the knuckles out, but they're finally out.

With respect to the clevis: neither one looks exactly great. They're not just Swiss cheese, but, for hard parts, there's a surprising amount of material flaking off of them. Frankly, it's more than I'm really happy with (or about).

From what I recall of running the VIN on this KJ before I bought it, it spent most of its life in New Jersey and Maryland before finally ending up in Virginia (where I bought it). I lived in Virginia for a time, so am familiar with conditions in the Mid-Atlantic in Winter, but I don't think I've ever seen components like this in this condition in my life - and I've lived in some pretty wet and salty places.

What's interesting (and makes me think that this one is not a Hurricane Sandy vehicle) is that rest of it is amazingly rust-free. It's literally just the Clevis and knuckles that are as rough as they are.

Is this common on KJs? If it is, that's fine and I can go pull better-condition replacements at the junkyard - but it was really surprising to run across given that everything at the rear was in much better shape.

Oh, and current reference on where getting the lift in stands at present :SOMBRERO:

MarkZ28 · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2018 10:20 pm

My 09 has the cast iron ckevis also. They were rusted as bad as yours and, as with your hubs, the abs sensor will never come out in one piece. Carfax says it was in New York for a bit then in Florida/Giergia. Now in Alabama. Rear axle is also rusted and the parking brake assemblies/hardware were rusted to pieces. Body looks great. Its like they painted the cast iron stuff with salt from the factory, lol. I cleaned the rust off the cleviss using muriatic acid and then painting them black. Hope to keep the rust away after that. I cant find any new ones anywhere, just used ones that look like my rusted stuff.

metalengineer · **Joined:** Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:08 am **Posts:** 21

In 2012, I was rotating tires and I noticed a lot of cracks in my front brake rotors. Several were completely through the rotor. the more a looked around, the more I noticed the paint on the suspension components was gone and rust had set in. it appeared to me the paint was gone about 9" in all directions from the brake rotor. this distance was consistent with all the suspension components. I know the first recall on my Liberty was to replace the LBJ because the brakes were cooking the grease inside the joint. so it made sense to me, with the condition of the rotors, that brake heat was cooking off the paint and allowing the rust to set in.

you could probably say that's far fetched, but that was my observation with my Jeep. I installed some aftermarket rotors to solve that part of the problem and some greaseable Moog LBJ to solve that part. I haven't noticed any rotor cracking since (75K cracked, 50K with the replacements). I recently a new lift kit and removed the original shock assembly. the bolts, fork arms, rubber..... were all really cooked and rusted.

thats my observation anyway. not sure if it helps you or not.

let us know.

Ed

casm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 29, 2006 5:05 pm **Posts:** 694

Thanks for the replies, folks. I've taken them under advisement, and think I'll go pull a decent set of clevises (clevii?) and knuckles from the junkyard. They'll make a good project for next Spring

Front steering and suspension rust questions

Who is online