calvinf1
Well-Known Member
The variation comes from the gear spacing in the steering box. Mopar does not do a good job adjusting the torque of the gears.... notice the looseness is only in the center. Outside of that range everything is solid and direct. The looseness exaggerated the crown of the road (which will help you track straight) and the jeep ends up wandering from side to side on flat surface.Hey Everyone,
I wanted to provide an update on my Jeep (2018 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara). I recently had the newer cast iron steering box(68507569AB) installed, with the new programming and new alignment. I already had the new track bar and dampener installed. Believe it or not, the previous AE version of the steering box was more accurate and had less wondering/darting than the newer black box. I was really hoping the new box and software flash would get by above 90% but it is worse now. I guess the last option are the longer control arms on the stock jeep.
Moral of the story - If your steering is ok, not perfect, but ok, it may be better to stick with your current box setup. There is alot of variation in the boxes being installed, and sometimes newer isn't better. Good luck to everyone who is having this issue.
For example. If your driving a normal car on a highway on the right lane, the car will naturally drift to the right (since the road slopes to the right). You typically and hold the wheel straight to the center and your car will track straight. But if you let go of the steering wheel, you will notice both the wheel and car will move to the right.... this is because the steering is tight. On the jeep, since it is loose, the steering wheel can be in the middle. This is the looseness from the gears.
On the jeep, you have to over compensate a bit more to keep the jeep centered but at the same time you can prevent it from drifting to side to side. The jeep will track straight since the crown is pulling to the right and you're manually steering to the left to compensate for the looseness. In this situation, the jeep doesn't wander.
However, if you are driving on a flat road with no crown to the left or right, then it is going to wander left and right as you steer left and right to compensate for the loose gears... even if you keep the wheel center, it can still drift left or right randomly.
The most impactful change on my Jeep was adjusting the steering gear torque and adding longer LCAs. It's not perfect but much better than before. And yes I have done the TSB already.
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