Steering On My Jeep

Hi I have a 68 cj5. I am putting on a superlift 4 inch suspension lift. I plan on running 32-33's. During driving the jeep wonders sided to side. I can not go down the street straight. Besides that it drives pretty well. I have manual steering. I read the article about the heim joints and was going to do that. I do not have access to many tools and am trying to avoid a crazy steering conversion. If anyone has any ideas please let me know. Would the article involving the heim setup help me enough to drive it locally. I am not going to be going crazy with it or even going on highways. Let me thanks.

 

nothing yet. It is all as it was when i bought it. I am in no way a mechanic. I was just trying to get something to mess around with. If thats what it takes then i may look into it.

 

Lets not forget the bellcrank. this is a common area for steering problems.

 

Plus if the shackles-to-springs or shackles-to-frame aren't tight, that too can account for major wander. With the Jeep parked, sit on the ground in front and peer at the shackles. Have an assistant push the CJ side-to-side; look to see sideways movement (that'd account for the same when driving).

Oh yeah, ensure proper toe-in adjustment and tire inflation.

 

You might want to take some pics of how it looks now. Some PO may have already modified something that's causing the sloppy steering.

 

thanks everyone, I have not installed the lift yet. I plan on installing it but wanted to correct the steering first. i have drive it upto and around 30-40mph with 31x10.5 on it. It swerves from left to right and is hard to control. I just put a new clutch in, so when that is finished i am going to take it back out and try to diagnose the problem further. who ever had the jeep int he past cut the steering shaft and added about 2-3 inchs with a weld and then put a smaller steering wheel on.

 

Do you have the oringinal steering box (ross) or has this been converted to saginaw. The Ross box is attached physically to the steering column (very bottom), the saginaw is usually attached to the front frame horn and has a shaft that goes thru the engine compartment to the steering column. Pictures would help greatly.

 

I have ross steering. At the bottom of the shaft there is a box.

 

Well I'm gonna add this then, you're never gonna have great steering witha 4" lift and ross steering. 2-2½" is much better an useable. 4" of lift and a Ross box are gonna make a bunch of bump steer. The bell crank and the drag link (bar from box to bellcrank)are what are prone to being worn. They can both be easily rebuilt but even rebuilt don't expect modern car or jeep like steering out of it. Alot of guys here wheel with it but once you've driven an old cj with a saginaw set up you'll wonder why you didn't do it years ago.

 

It would be worth it to get the alignment checked. If possible go to a shop that can give you the alignment numbers in writing. That's great data to have as a baseline. Also, they may be able to recognize a problem that you're not seeing. In general I don't take my rig to anyone as I try and do as much as possible myself but this would be an exception.

Also, what Mruff said about lift size and saginaw. And, what Lynn said about caster.

After everything else is good you might consider a steering damper but don't start with that - it's not a band aid to mask other problems.

 

Believe me these guys are miraculous at analyzing stuff just from pics....post up some pics and I'll bet you get the answer.

 

I am going to try and get some pictures today or tomorrow. I will consider going with a 2.5 inch lift. I was really interested in the 4 because of tire clearance and just to look bad ***(as stupid as it sounds). If a 2.5 can handle 33's and get me over what i am going to be going through then that should be fine