Rusty's Steering Conversion

[grasseater]

I bought Rusty's Tierod/ draglink conversion a few months ago. After several calls to Rusty's and a few trips to the alignment shop, I still can't get rid of the vague feel in the steering and the hint of death wobble that's still present. For those of you who have experienced death wobble, you'll probably know what it's like to be rather sensitive to it's onset.

I also can't get my steering wheel centered because the drag link is too long. The rod ends are all the way in and tie rod adjustment has been made from the drivers side wheel.

The alignment, ball joints, steering stabilizer (new), etc. are all tight & right.

Any suggestions?

 

[Beezil]

steering box?

have someone see-saw the steering wheel back-and-forth quickly while you feel around with your hands for any loose ends.

thats a very effective way to diagnose.....

trackbar and their mounting points are suspects.

 

[grasseater]

Trackbar & box are good as well. I re-installed the stock set up and all the problems went away.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used Rusty's conversion?

 

[ECKSJAY]

Trackbar & box are good as well. I re-installed the stock set up and all the problems went away.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used Rusty's conversion?

Sold mine to a YJ guy on JU. I had the same issues...fixed when I changed the steering stuff to Currie.

 

[themud]

Hey grasseater and ECKSJAY what are your setups as far as lift, year, milage, and trackbars and drop pitman or no???? Have a rustys steering conversion and dont know whether to even try and put it on or just get moog joints for the stock crap and go with that for a while....If you dont wanna post here just pm me backchannel...
thanks
themud

 

[grasseater]

I have Rusty's 4.5" with 2" coil spacers and shackles, 115k on 4.0, D30/35 3.07 with a 4.56 in the closet waiting to be installed & 33's on 15x10.

I have bought lots of stuff from Rusty's and have been very happy with the service, quality, etc, with the exception of the steering conversion.

I have seen substantial negative feedback about the steering conversion, but can only speak from my own experience. It must be working for someone out there, but obviously others are having problems with it.

After my experience, I would not recommend the setup to anyone, rather I would point them in the direction of the Currie conversion. A bit more expensive, but retains the stock geometry and adjustability.

If you haven't installed your setup yet, I recommend returning it unless you are willing to potentially invest a lot of time and money getting it tuned right; or you could be lucky and not have any problems at all.

 

[tony597fitter]

I have had mine on for 4-6 months with 15000+ miles on it. Not a single problem to speak of. I cant see why your draglink is too long with that much lift. I ran my setup at 3" for a while and now I am at 5.5" and it still works great. It took the guys and me at the alignment shop some time to get it all adjusted right, but I have no complaints at all.

 

[grasseater]

It's good to hear some positive feedback about the setup, maybe it'll help me sell mine.

Seriously, though, I'm glad for those who aren't having problems. I was excited about it at first, but lost interest. I may as well go high steer for all the problems I had.

 

[woody]

I've had good results with mine (older Gen 1 type) I had it on my MJ for approx 10k (several wheeling adventures) and then swapped onto my XJ in May...probably about another 10k and more wheeling. I never had a bit of problems out of it.

I did swap the TREs when I swapped over to the XJ, more to keep the old ones O/H for trail spares than for them actually needing replaced.

 

[dcorkie2]

I'm with you Grasseater. The shop tried to tweek mine to no avail and that was on a stock suspension on a '92 MJ. So I went back to stock and now I'm selling my steering conversion. Maybe someone else can have better luck than me!

 

[cherokeekid]

I've had mine on for a few years. Took a while to work the bugs out.

Personally I pass on alignment shops $35 is too much to spend for a toe set.

I just ago the toe as close to 0 as possible and made sure everything was tight. the nice part is I don't smack the passenger sway bar end link when flexed up like the factory style steering does, but that is about it, in hindsight I would probably find some used V-8 ZJ steering and spend my money elsewhere.