CJ5 Jeep Steering Diagnosing

Stop Throwing Parts At Your Jeep
Learning to properly diagnose an issue will help you pinpoint exactly what's wrong, allowing you to fix the issues. This will save you time and money, and more importantly help you get home if issues arise while on a trail.
While I'm doing this on our v8 CJ5, this will work on any other Jeep such as a cj7, Cherokee, Power Wagon, and really any classic or modern vehicle. We do the exact same diagnosing on our Miata when we are racing, and will be doing the exact same diagnoses on the dirt circle track truck in the next week as we approach our event at Limaland in Ohio.
The big thing is understanding how a component operates. The steering operates through a series of knuckles or U-joints, followed by a steering box which has gears inside, switching back to a series of levers and joints. Every one of these components could be worn out and need replaced.
As a matter of fact, when we were picking this jeep up we were told it needed a new steering column. And that was diagnosed by a shop. hmmm.
The death wobble or poor highway driving conditions come from theses issues in the steering system, but you may just need an adjustment or simple repair. In the future i will be tearing my steering box apart to truly find out what is causing the issues.
The Steering is equally bad on my 1960 Ford Fairlane 500 project sitting here, but the issue could also be something completely different, this is why diagnosing is so essential.
The same goes for this fuel tank reading issue. i've watched a dozen videos leading to 5 different causes and very few people actually diagnosing. I've seen the sending unit error and the gauge error, but without diag you would just be throwing expensive parts at it. If you're restoring the entire vehicle then so be it but for most of us, that's not the case.

[@timaloha]

Thank you for this video. My jeep (73 CJ5) oversteers to both the left and right, especially when I shift and/or give it some gas, but pretty much whenever it feels like it. I'm at the point where I'm not driving it because it feels unsafe. Hopefully I'll be able to get an idea what's wrong by following your directions so that I don't get ripped off if I decide to bring it to a shop. (I love jeeps, but I'm a crappy mechanic)

[@HCRacing]

You got this, just take your time and find that slop. Once you get in the habit of those diagnosis and adjustments, you'll have the best handling jeep out there

[@tonib9703]

Great video, Intellitronix makes a direct fit LED gauge cluster for the CJ

[@HCRacing]

I'll have to check that out. We are eventually building our cj5 as a mild buggy for our Emergency Response team, so it will see some bad weather and a nice LED cluster would be pretty nice

[@danhunter9866]

With shackles like that, you may want to add in some caster shims on the front springs. Works a charm

[@HCRacing]

We are back and forth on if we will be keeping the jeep. The build is kinda sketchy out the gate and it's looking like we would have to rebuild every single aspect to get it where we wanted. Kinda frustrating