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Well seeing as how I've seen this problem misdiagnosed a million times by the evergrowing TJ XJ tracbar setup generation I figured I'd post this. My buddy Dave and I found this out when his bolt on his tracbar busted off coming down a steep and windy hill in the middle of the night . I'll post this in newbie seeing as how it involves a tracbar its definitely not hardcore. Anyhow this can lead to the steering feeling funny (bumpsteer) or a popping sound that you'll have a bitch of a time finding. Its not the TRE's or something hitting its factory brackets failing after you decided to use them for something they were not intended for and thats rockcrawling with big tires and lift. The TJ and XJ steering setup is almost identical so this applies to both. Below is a pic of the fix a square washer nice and thick. I now carry these on the trail as a quick fix. Next to it is the problem the bracket has been wallowed out and is now bigger giving slop only under pressure. My buddies was a lot worse off I'm doing the preventative thing here. Even if the bolt is tight the bracket is bent up and tatered and the bolt will loosen over time. The steering stabilizer bracket needs to be ground back so you can put the washer over the hole flush to be welded on.

 

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Now weld or tack the sucker in place and the problem will go away. Its one of those little problems that can create big problems if not dealt with early like flimsy stock control arm brackets. Make sure you put speckled birdshit welds all over it like I did so the bootie fab will not go unnoticed. I'm tired of seeing this break on trails, parking lots, and posted here so hopefully if you searched under bumpsteer, steering problems, tracbar, or popping sound then you would have found this and there will be one less dumb post in Jeep Talk.