At the end of my rope of steering issues.***FIXED!****

[Kurt0]

I have 1 month left on the 1 year warranty with the Fox stabilizer. I am most likely going to ship it back to them and have them go through it.

let us know what they say/find

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[TxJeepers]

Same boat OP. Taking mine to a shop on Tuesday to have them double check me on everything. I’ve ruled out most of the suggestions here.

 

[Jeep&dogs]

If you are running 6 degrees or more caster and were running your stabilizer all the way firm, then that would cause a slight bump steer situation. What your experiencing with the oem ss is your not fighting your caster anymore. This may not be the case with your specific situation, but I experienced this trying to run my stabilizer to stiff, my caster is 6.3 degrees so I’m at 17 clicks , because that’s as stiff as I can run it and not have any vibrations in the steering wheel.

I am right at 6.8/6.9 but I have tried it everywhere from 5.5 to 7.5 in .2 degree increments. I was all the way firm on the stabilizer

 

[Jeepsk8]

I guess that’s a fairly good way to describe it, mine feels like it is struggling to decide what direction it wants to go. What tire are you running?

I'm running Cooper STT Pro's 37x12.5-17. As I mentioned, it did this with the stock wheels / tires too. As an observation, temperature and tire pressure seem to have an influence, but the longer I drive it the less able I am to quantify that. I've read other threads that have the same issue just after lifting...and it doesn't seem to matter which brand of lift. Some have reported that replacing the ball joints fixed it, but you have replaced those. I hate throwing parts at stuff like this.

 

[Jeep&dogs]

I'm running Cooper STT Pro's 37x12.5-17. As I mentioned, it did this with the stock wheels / tires too. As an observation, temperature and tire pressure seem to have an influence, but the longer I drive it the less able I am to quantity that. I've read other threads that have the same issue just after lifting...and it doesn't seem to matter which brand of lift. Some have reported that replacing the ball joints fixed it, but you have replaced those. I hate throwing parts at stuff like this.

Trust me, the list of parts is long and distinguished.

 

[Roky]

I am right at 6.8/6.9 but I have tried it everywhere from 5.5 to 7.5 in .2 degree increments. I was all the way firm on the stabilizer

Yeah....your running a lot of caster, so you don’t want your ss to be super stiff, that will cause steering wheel to shimmy. That was the case with mine anyway.

 

[Jeep&dogs]

Yeah....your running a lot of caster, so you don’t want your ss to be super stiff, that will cause steering wheel to shimmy. That was the case with mine anyway.

So when this all started I did the lift and the Clayton arms. I set the caster at 6.5 to start. I was getting a shimmy and thought it was tire related because I just had them balanced. I went back and forth with tires for a while and then started playing with toe and caster. Then I noticed a slight play in the rt tie rod so I did the Rusty’s steering.

I might throw the Fox back on tomorrow and turn it down some and see what it does.

 

[Jeep&dogs]

Prior to the lift I was running the Mopar factory lift arms so I’m guessing my caster was around 5.5 ish.

 

[Roky]

So when this all started I did the lift and the Clayton arms. I set the caster at 6.5 to start. I was getting a shimmy and thought it was tire related because I just had them balanced. I went back and forth with tires for a while and then started playing with toe and caster. Then I noticed a slight play in the rt tie rod so I did the Rusty’s steering.

I might throw the Fox back on tomorrow and turn it down some and see what it does.

It may not cure it, but it should run as good as it does with the oem . You can pull the oem out and push it down on the work bench and try to set your fox to the same stiffness by feel. You can get it pretty close this way.

 

[Jeep&dogs]

I will say that with the stock stabilizer it has better wheel return. With the Fox you had to center the wheel the last few degrees and with the stock it pretty much returns back 100%

 

[Kurt0]

I will say that with the stock stabilizer it has better wheel return. With the Fox you had to center the wheel the last few degrees and with the stock it pretty much returns back 100%

definitely sounds like a bad damper. The wheel should center....

 

[Jeep&dogs]

definitely sounds like a bad damper. The wheel should center....

Honestly thinking about it, caster is what centers the wheel. If the stabilizer is set too stiff it won’t let that happen, it would be fighting the natural force for the wheel to center.

 

[Roky]

Honestly thinking about it, caster is what centers the wheel. If the stabilizer is set too stiff it won’t let that happen, it would be fighting the natural force for the wheel to center.

yep

 

[Kurt0]

Honestly thinking about it, caster is what centers the wheel. If the stabilizer is set too stiff it won’t let that happen, it would be fighting the natural force for the wheel to center.

yes, that is true; i guess id be surprised if the damper had sufficient resistance to do that.

turn it all the way flat down and see if it still does it. Im really on the “bad damper” not “too stiff damper“; but ive never used that particular one.

 

[Jeep&dogs]

Oh it’s stiff. I’m 198 and with it full stiff I can put all my weight on it and it won’t move. You actually have to apply more pressure to get it to move and it barely does.

Thinking this through a little when you hit a bump the wheel gets thrown in one direction or the other, the weight of the Jeep and the caster tries to return the wheel back to center, the stabilizer is basically neutral and wants to keep the wheel what ever way the bump forced it to go. After a few rounds of this it manages to find center and life is good.

I am going to try putting it back on tomorrow and sure it to it’s softest setting and see how it is.

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