Slop In Steering?

[Cherokeekid88]

Next week, I am gonna drop my jeep off at my buddy's and have him look at it for me, but I think I have posted about this before, but my steering wheel is is almost turned 90 degrees to the left when going straight. My steering feels like there is a bit of play, does that mean that my steering box is going or something else? Can I re enforce the box to make it tighter by adding some bracing and/or steering box brace that connects to the uni body frame as well?

I really don't want to swap em out right now if the box itself isn't that bad off...I am just a newb when it comes to steering boxes and such.

 

[old_man]

The steering wheel has zero to do with the steering gear. It has everything to do with adjusting the drag link.

Based on 12+ years of fixing tons of XJ's and having rebuilt over 100 steering gears, slop in the steering is much more likely to be due to bad joints and linkage mounting than the steering gear adjustment.

 

[Cherokeekid88]

when you say joints, you mean joints in the linkage that goes from the steering wheel to the steering box?

I just don't want to waste money on a professional alignment when they might not be the underlining problem.

 

[old_man]

No I am talking about the joints on the arm from the gear down to the passenger side wheel and the joints from wheel to wheel. That is just a starting point, there are all kinds of things such as track bar bushings, bracket mountings and such.