RK steering problems

so i have rock krawler hd steering and it drives like crap. i've been running it for about a month and don't know how i haven't been pulled over for DUI. its that bad. worse than my 87 ram when i blow up the intermediate steering shaft. all over the road, super sensitive sometimes, other times nonreactive at first, also sounds like a wooden ship at sea. i drive 30 highway miles for work 6 days a week-no bueno.



A)i'm at about 5.5-6" of lift in front, all new ball joints, evenly worn tires
B)put a brand new tie rod @ pitman arm on install
C)i am running one stabilizer on the tierod mounted to the drivers side of the axle and its in good shape
D)i have seen people mount this steering differently on the passenger side knuckle with draglink on top or on the bottom. i could only mount it on the top bc it would bind hardcore at any level of droop if mounted underneath.
E)i think the RK 5/8" heims are garbage (the steering is used but i think they're made junk too?)


so i was thinking maybe get some kind of high steer bracket and switch the draglink to stock 22mm threaded tre on the axle side of the drag link? this would be if there was no good solution to the problem.

1)How much caster?,

2)Any visible slop whith someone turning the wheels back and forth?

caster is good-i have drop brackets on right now with adj UCAs and LCAs. i think the body is moving a bit. trac bar bushing at axle probably needs to be replaced. still thats not enough to cause this terrible handling.

as for steering slop i'll have to check with a buddy. box might be a little loose inside but thats expected with over 200k. i think the heims are to blame or just how the steering is designed

kinda sounds like your trac bar/draglink geometry is off. post a pic of the setup so we can see whats going on

How do you know caster is good? A few degrees can make the steering sensitve and wander....

i haven't actually checked how many degrees but everything is in spec for lift amount to arm length with the drop brackets. doubled checked lift height sitting at 5.5" in front, axle is centered under the jeep correctly, good alignment

I've had a ~1/4" of play either way on one of my tie rod ends recently ... none of the symptoms you describe, mostly wobbles at speed. Still drove 'OK' though.

You really need to measure your caster, I mean actually check it. I set my XJ up "to Spec" at first and it was all over the place, it was a two fisted trip across town doing everything I could to keep it going straight down the road. Then I shortened the upper arms some (fixed lowers and adjustable uppers), it got better but was still fairly twitchy, shortened them some more, and dropped a few psi off the tires and bingo ... she's still not perfect but I can drive down the highway one handed again.

My lowers are at 16.5" and my uppers are around 15.5-15.75" my castor is roughed in at 5-ish degrees.

For s and giggles try shortening your uppers a bit and see where it's at then. Uppers are easy to adjust is why I mention them, very little tension on them at rest.

I just used a angle finder on the front of the diff and used the GoJeep page to convert to a rough castor angle.