Heavy Duty Track Bar

About the same time that I was working on Shannon's car, my Jeep was having some trouble. Whenever I turned, the front end popped and the angle of the turn would change slightly. For a while, I couldn't figure out what was going on, but I finally asked Shannon to look under my front end while I turned the wheel to see where the noise was coming from (don't worry, the Jeep was off and not moving). By that time, it had gotten so bad that I could feel the pop when I turned the wheel. It turns out the culprit was a worn track bar relocation bracket. I did some research online and found out that that was a common problem with lifted Jeeps. When people go the cheap route and use the stock track bar with a relocation bracket, instead of getting an adjustable track bar, the stock one often wears out. Here's a picture of the stock track bar and relocation bracket.


This is a close up of the relocation bracket. It moved a little each time I turned the wheel, causing the popping in the steering.


I did a little more research and settled on replacing my stock track bar with an Iron Rock Off Road Heavy Duty Adjustable Double Shear Track Bar. Iron Rock Off Road is the same company that I bought my slip yoke eliminator kit from. It's a really great company that makes quality products and has great customer service (that influenced my decision).

The new track bar required that I also change the bracket that mounts to the frame rail on the driver's side. This picture shows the original frame side track bar bracket.


Overall, the installation was straight forward because all the new parts were bolt on. Of course, doing the work in a slanted driveway added a bit of a challenge, because the track bar had a lot of pressure on it keeping the body from shifting over the axle. I had to lift and support the front frame rails and lift and support the front axle with blocks of wood to keep the body and axle from moving with respect to each other when I removed the track bar.

As soon as I decided I was going to replace the track bar, I started PB Blasting all the bolts twice a day (PB Blaster is a penetrating catalyst that breaks the rust bond between the threads of nuts and bolts). After dealing with Shannon's car, I was terrified of breaking another bolt in a critical or hard to reach spot. Most of the bolts and nuts broke loose with a wrench and a BFH. There were two bolts that were a challenge to remove. They were both very rusty and threatened to break. Luckily, after a generous treatment with a propane torch on both nuts, both bolts broke lose with little fuss. After examining one of the bolts, I realized I was pretty lucky to get it out without breaking it. I think the only reason it didn't break was because it was a high strength, 10.9 metric bolt. You can see how corroded it was near the head.


I replaced those two bolts temporarily with 8.8 bolts available at the local hardware store, while my 10.9s are on order.

After the stock track bar was removed, installing the new one consisted of bolting on the new frame-side bracket then adjusting the length and installing the new track bar, which went smoothly. This picture shows the new frame side bracket and heavy duty track bar.


This picture shows the axle side of the new track bar, sans relocation bracket.


After I installed the new track bar, I went for a short test drive. The steering felt great and tight, compared to being loose and "floaty" before. I parked the Jeep on the only level piece of concrete in town and measured to make sure the axle was centered under the body. I had to lengthen the track bar 1/8th of an inch to get centered, but now my Jeep handles great. The new frame side track bar bracket lowers the track bar mounting location 3/4", which has pretty much eliminated my bumpsteer, too. I do have to get an alignment done now, because the old track bar didn't have the axle centered, so my steering geometry is a little bit off.