What happened...?!

MojaveKJ · **Posted:** Sun Mar 07, 2010 10:08 pm

I've been having this 'drifty' feeling in my KJ for the last week or so, like driving in high winds. The Jeep would suddenly 'shift' to the left or right as if I had turned the wheel. Not a good feeling to be doing 70mph and suddenly find yourself drifting quickly into the next lane. The more I tried to feel what was happening the more is felt like the rear wheels were suddenly steering, independently of the front wheels.

So today I got the KJ up in the air and found this...

Right rear bushing

Left rear bushing

Rear ball joint

There is a lot more gap between the lip of the bushing on the left than there is on the right, and the right bushing may even be loose in the control arm, I can't tell. I'm not mechanic by any means but I'm pretty sure this is what's causing the weird (and dangerous) drifting I've been experiencing. Also it looks like the ball joint boot is shredded (as a result?)

I recently replaced all the bushings in the rear as well as the ball joint in the rear control arm...WHAT HAPPENED? I had the bushings and ball joint pressed in at a local machine shop that seemed competent..could they have done the press out/in wrong? I guess I should've just ordered the whole assembly as one piece and done it that way. I know the bushings were not like that when I put the control arm back on the Jeep.

Please weigh in with your opinion on why this may have happened. Or if my assumptions are not right, please say so and give a guy a bit of educatin' on the subject...

What would cause this?

MojaveKJ · **Posted:** Sat Mar 13, 2010 3:50 pm

OK, I'll answer...

1. Wrongly attempted to save money on the job. See Murphy's Law chapter 4, paragraph 22, line 6.

2. Trusted someone else with my KJ, or part of it anyway. See Murphy's Law chapter 56, paragraph 1, line 1.

Live and learn if you're lucky I suppose.

TexasRock · **Posted:** Sat Mar 13, 2010 5:00 pm

So what did you conclude?

MojaveKJ · **Posted:** Sat Mar 13, 2010 5:10 pm

TexasRock wrote:

So what did you conclude?

Well, nothing yet. Visual inspection shows the conditions mentioned above. New control arm arrives today and I don't know what else it could be if it's not that.

I'll update the thread with what I find when the old one is off the Jeep. I suspect it's that bushing falling out that is causing the wobbly feeling I get.

More later....

1996xj · **Posted:** Sat Mar 13, 2010 8:58 pm

MojaveKj, I have been experincing the same problem and have also noticed the rear bushing's, please let us know what if any differance this changed for you !!

dieselenthusiast · **Posted:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:26 am

Subscribing to learn

TexasRock · **Posted:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 11:12 am

I'm going to go crawl under mine... those angles are pretty sharp. Who swapped them out the last time? It almost looks upside down...

Keith

MojaveKJ · **Posted:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:16 pm

TexasRock wrote:

I'm going to go crawl under mine... those angles are pretty sharp. Who swapped them out the last time? It almost looks upside down...

Keith

I thought the same thing, almost right away. The new control arm arrived late yesterday so I'll be doing this job this afternoon and I'm prepared to feel pretty stupid if it is in fact upside down and I didn't notice when I put it back on. :oops:

That will just confirm the fact that I'm a HACK mechanic who maybe should take his KJ to someone else WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING. Not just a 'part-swapper' like me.

We'll see... :?:

TexasRock · **Posted:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:46 pm

Live and learn my friend.... if it is in fact on wrong, you will know next time and be able to assist someone else!

ATXKJ · **Posted:** Sun Mar 14, 2010 3:23 pm

FYI - as a reference
Tony posted this over at KJcountry
http://www.jeepkj.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33954

MojaveKJ · **Posted:** Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:06 am

TexasRock wrote:

So what did you conclude?

Just as I suspected, the bushing was loose in the control arm on the left side (or was it the right?) and I think the ball joint failed prematurely or was damaged during the install as the end of the ball joint wiggles freely when moved. The new ball joint does not. I think the 2 bushings are good so I may save those somehow but don't know how to determine if the BIQ (bushing in question) was too small for the hole in the control arm or is it the other way around. One way I only lose a bushing, the other I lose the control arm I now want as a trail spare. :JEEPIN:

1996xj wrote:

MojaveKj, I have been experincing the same problem and have also noticed the rear bushing's, please let us know what if any differance this changed for you !!

It did the fix. No more shifting in the rear end and no more unintentional steering into the next lane. :shock:

TexasRock wrote:

I'm going to go crawl under mine... those angles are pretty sharp. Who swapped them out the last time? It almost looks upside down...

Keith

Whew...it was installed correctly and the bushings were installed in the correct direction too, well same as the assembly I got from Morris 4x4.

TexasRock wrote:

Live and learn my friend.... if it is in fact on wrong, you will know next time and be able to assist someone else!

Good point. :mrgreen:

ATXKJ wrote:

FYI - as a reference
Tony posted this over at KJcountry
http://www.jeepkj.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33954

Yep, I printed and used this link the last time I had the 'boomerang' off the KJ. It was still tricky this time to align the ball joint end with the clevis on the diff. but somehow I managed to get it back together in a decent amount of time.
Now, I hope I can move on to doing 'the good stuff' on the Jeep. I like doing improvements much more than repairs. :JEEPIN:

MojaveKJ · **Posted:** Tue Mar 16, 2010 11:45 am

Well, after driving the Jeep for a day it seems the problem has not been corrected. It is not as frequent or severe as it was before replacing the rear control arm on Sunday but it is still there. I've tried all I know or can think of to get this fixed and really do not know what is going on with my KJ and am about at the end of my rope here.

Not sure what to do now. Sell it? Shoot it? Push it off a cliff? F! :banghead:

dieselenthusiast · **Posted:** Wed Mar 17, 2010 11:04 pm

Take your Jeep to a reputable dealership and let them do the work for you. Or, take your jeep to a reputable shop or have a reputable LOST member help you. If you do sell it, buy a Commander, Cherokee XJ, or 4-door JK Wrangler.

hoku5 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 18, 2010 12:44 am

Did you check your steering rack? Could be worn bushings or the rack itself.

MojaveKJ · **Posted:** Sat Mar 20, 2010 2:34 am

dieselenthusiast wrote:

Take your Jeep to a reputable dealership and let them do the work for you. Or, take your jeep to a reputable shop or have a reputable LOST member help you. If you do sell it, buy a Commander, Cherokee XJ, or 4-door JK Wrangler.

The unfortunate part is that I have some reason not to trust the two dealerships that are nearest to me

(I wont elaborate here) so I took your advice and took my KJ to the (what i gathered is) best suspension shop in "television city" and according to them (and I have no reason to distrust them) the problem is the bushings in the rear lower control arms are bad.

These are the same bushings I replaced in January. I guess it's is not out of the realm of possibility that the bushings have gone bad. They were mail ordered and not factory. Maybe they were counterfeit Chinese rubber knock offs? Maybe they were pressed in to the arms incorrectly? I have no way of knowing. Tomorrow morning I'll take one off and have a look at the bushings. If needed and if I can get to the Jeep parts counter soon enough I can order new arms and have them Monday. :JEEPIN:

But the real job for tomorrow is installing the Reese front receiver that I bought from a fellow LOST member. I had it sandblasted, re-powder coated flat black and ordered new hardware from Bolt Depot. Post with pics to come.

hoku5 wrote:

Did you check your steering rack? Could be worn bushings or the rack itself.

I did... that was one of the first things I thought of when I noticed the shimmy. I changed out the steering rack a few months back and was very happy to see that the looseness was not caused by the rack. I did not enjoy replacing the rack in my KJ. :evil:

RLCs are much easier to swap out.

Thanks for the replies and advice. I'll post back the results as I discover them.

durangotang · **Posted:** Sat Mar 20, 2010 2:53 am

Might be a dumb question... but have you had the alignment checked?

MojaveKJ · **Posted:** Sat Mar 20, 2010 3:21 am

durangotang wrote:

Might be a dumb question... but have you had the alignment checked?

Not dumb at all. I thought it was the alignment too and had it aligned which seemed to help for a while, then it was back. Then I looked at the bushings on the upper arm like in the post above and concluded (see middle-ish post re: not a real mechanic) that that was the cause of the swaying (not a shimmy really, NTITAI) and replaced that last Sunday.

I can't wait to see that lower arm tomorrow morning...

durangotang · **Posted:** Sat Mar 20, 2010 4:26 am

You may want to have the alignment specs checked again... sears and whatnot do that for free... you may have issues in the steering components that are causing it to not hold alignment. Fixing the rear end may have also changed the specs some... (forgot the name...Thrust Angle?)

MojaveKJ · **Posted:** Sun Mar 28, 2010 1:16 am

So this is what I found when I took off the rear control arms. Then I looked at the replacement arms I got from Jeep and they have a solid bushing in both ends as opposed to these that failed which have a 'slotted' bushing in one end.

Anyway...

Opinions? The Jeep tracks fine now with the new arms, as expected.

What happened...?!

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