I've got a YJ with a coil over conversion on it. The jeep seems pretty squirly on the highway and I'm wondering if it's because the drag link has too much angle? What is maximum angle for a drag link? It also doesn't have a steering stabilizer do you think that would help?


Ideas?


Thanks
Dean

Bump-steer is caused by the arc of draglink travel pulling or pushing on your pitman arm as the suspension goes up and down.

On most stock vehicles (including the YJ), a track bar (often called a panhard rod in other vehicles) alters the suspension's movement by pushing it to one side as it your suspension compresses so that it cancels out this pulling or pushing on the pitman arm and keeps the distance between the points where each end of the draglink are connected more or less constant throughout the suspension's travel. It's my guess that the track bar was removed when the coil-over conversion was performed.

I believe that trailing-arm type suspensions (like a TJ and like your YJ probably now has) may be less tolerant in this respect than leaf springs because the axle also moves further fore and aft (than a leaf-sprung suspension does) as the the suspension travels (the shorter the arms, the further the fore/aft movement as the suspension nears the limits of its travel). This could be exacerbating any bump-steer you might have.

I have no idea what the maximum-tolerable angle is, but in the absence of a track bar, the closer you can get your draglink to being parallel with your axle throughout it's range of motion as the suspension flexes, the less bump-steer you will have. If you already have a drop pitman arm on there, you might look into one with a longer drop.

A steering stabilizer might help a little (it will help more you if you are also having feedback problems caused by too-short trailing arms and too much lift--e.g. death wobble), but I'd start with a longer pitman arm.


HTH,
Jake

Yeah, The kit came with a 4" drop pitman but I'm thinking that maybe I would put a blue torch fab crossover steering bracket on the front and see if that would get the drag link a little more flat but I'm not sure how much the bracket raises the drag link. I guess I'll have to call BTF and ask!

Yeah, The kit came with a 4" drop pitman but I'm thinking that maybe I would put a blue torch fab crossover steering bracket on the front and see if that would get the drag link a little more flat but I'm not sure how much the bracket raises the drag link. I guess I'll have to call BTF and ask!

That would probably help. I'm old-school and didn't even know such a critter was made! :beer:


Been out of it for too long,
Jake

How about a picture, angle alone is not the root of bump-steer. Whos coil kit did you use?
Travis..