Loud clunk in my steering

Post by **Yoda** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 9:58 pm

So about a month ago I guess it was I installed a rough country 4" on my 03 Jeep GC. As far as steering goes it has a drop pitman arm, and a track bar drop bracket. At first I was thinking this clunking was coming from the track bar bracket, but it was getting worse and I only kept tightening the bolt on the bracket more. Anyways, I noticed the nut on the pitman arm had worked its way loose. So I just tightened it only for the clunk to get worse. It happens mostly when I am turning left, but occasionally when I turn right and only when I do so quickly. I can't quite pinpoint what it could be other than maybe the splines stripped when the pitman arm was loose. This doesn't make a whole of of sense as to why it would have gotten worse when I tightened and not better. My other hypothesis is that somehow the tierod is contacting the pitman arm. Maybe I raised the height of the pitman arm by tightening it and increased the angle which that balljoint to the tierod sits at causing it to contact? I'm not sure if that would possible and if it would make a loud clunk when it hit. When I installed the lift could I have tightened that nut too tight or not enough? It is a cotter pinned nut and I got it to where I could get the pin in so I figured it was torqued to where it needed to be. Anyone have any ideas what else it could be? I guess track bar bracket is still possible, but it does it when I am in park and shift the steering wheel left and right abruptly.

Post by **hklvette** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 10:53 pm

any play in the shaft that the pitman arm connects to on the steering box? Is the mount to the body still solid? Any play in the column, especially at the joint just before entering the steering box. just throwing out guesses here...

YouTube · Post by **TerryD** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 5:09 am

The sway bar links make a clunk when I turn fast or hit certain bumps because they are not tightened as tight as they should be. I thought it was a problem until I started rocking it hard in a parking lot one time and saw them jump around.

Post by **alk1174** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 7:54 am

You may have already tried this but my suggestion would be to put it up on stands and have some one crank the wheel back and forth and just look for the obvious. Might also want to try it off of the stands. Maybe even try driving it slowly and walk beside it while they crank the wheel.

Post by **Yoda** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 8:06 am

swaybar links eh? that could be possibly it as it usually does it through pretty sharp cornering. not sure how that would explain the sound when im in park though. ill inspect them and see if they are tight enough though.

Post by **Yoda** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 8:48 am

FOUND IT! It wasn't the sway bar being loose, it was the sway bar bolt being GONE!? haha damn thing came so loose the bolt fell out on the passenger side and was pretty damn loose on the drivers side. I guess I should have retorqued them like i did everything else after I drove it for awhile. Don't know how I missed that one

. Anyways probably the source of the the clunk. Will get another bolt for it from heaveners or lowes and then see if that fixes it...more than likely will.

Post by **hklvette** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:55 pm

Well, at least its a cheap fix.

Post by **Yoda** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:32 pm

No go...put a new bolt in. Fixed the fact there was none there and that the sway bar is actually functional now, but the loud clunk while cornering is still there.

im a little worried that it may be the cv joint on my axle shaft. The one downfall of the d30s on wjs is that they don't have u-joints.

YouTube · Post by **TerryD** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 10:26 pm

Yoda wrote:The one downfall of the d30s on wjs is that they don't have u-joints.

Only if you're wheeling it on large tires. Makes for super tight turning radius!

The CV would make a loud, repetitive thumping if it was bad, and only with power applied to it.