Excess Front End Play

[Cliff]

Like other 70's GM vehicles, my 77 Cherokee (QT and 401) with power steering has a vague road feel, quite a bit of play, and effortless steering. But recently I have noticed it "walking" left or right and curious to which front end components are likely at fault. The front end looks good and all is well maintained by me but it does have 100k miles and not sure of overall repair history.

I have had Saginaw manual steering on previous Jeeps and AMC's and that had an adjustment to take the "play" out of the steering but the PS adjustments seem to be possible only during a rebuild.

['89_Wagon]

This may not be the case with yours, but when my tire pressure is down 5-10 lbs, I get more walking. My rig could also use an alignment.

[backroadin']

Check the rag joint. BJ's sells a replacement if it's bad, and others.

Have someone work the wheel back and forth with the engine off while you check. Follow the steering shaft from firewall to the knuckles.
Also, the ujoint right off the steering column can wear out and create play too. ALot of 70's jeeps had a stamped steel joint that isn't rebuildable or replaceable, and is not the kind of ujoint with bearings and stuff.

[Tripwire]

agree with backroading, the rag joint is suspect - i opted for the shaft delete option, if you lifted your rig more than a inch you need to have the caster checked/corrected - forget the chain and most mom and pops, go to a real 4WD off-road center

[Cliff]

Check the rag joint. BJ's sells a replacement if it's bad, and others.

Have someone work the wheel back and forth with the engine off while you check. Follow the steering shaft from firewall to the knuckles.
Also, the ujoint right off the steering column can wear out and create play too. ALot of 70's jeeps had a stamped steel joint that isn't rebuildable or replaceable, and is not the kind of ujoint with bearings and stuff.

There is slight play in the steering u-joint but the rag joint is tight. I see BJ's sells a replacement steering bar with u-joints at both ends. Might be what I need.

[backroadin']

I see BJ's sells a replacement steering bar with u-joints at both ends. Might be what I need.

This is what I did, except I went with the rag joint shaft. My upper joint happened to be really sloppy. It was more than I wanted to spend, but now that it's in, I've forgotten the money part. Quality piece, well made and the fit was perfect. You'll have to put some paint on it since it comes bare metal - otherwise it'll look all rusty in a year.

It tightened up my steering but not completely - I think I still have some play in the steering box itself, which I'll just deal with for now. I've read about the adjustment screw on the p/s boxes, but also read that it's not the proper way to "tighten up" the steering. I'm pretty sure tgreese had a few posts here on that topic that convinced me of that.

[rang-a-stang]

XJ Steering mid shaft bolts in with U-Joints. That's what I did.

[mwood65]

Mine got terrible seemingly overnight... All the bolts from the gearbox to the frame were broken except for 1 of them and it was loose.


Scary to think what could have happened...


Check those bolts!

[Cliff]

XJ Steering mid shaft bolts in with U-Joints. That's what I did.

Rang - what year XJ steering arm fits the FSJ?

[rang-a-stang]

Not sure. I just copied this guy

http://www.ifsja.org/forums/vb/showthread.php?t=145436

[rallison203]

[Deleted and started new thread.]

[sierrablue]

I've been having a bit of walking (since I got it), and we checked every last steering joint, alignment, everything. We're pretty sure the bushings for the springs and shackles are the culprit, so that's one of the new things on the list...have the bushings, just need some time to replace them.