Steering Issue in Gladiator front end

[ShadowsPapa]

It looks like that TSB does not apply to MY’21, has anyone heard of manufacturer flaws of the gearbox? Such as poor casting quality and a cracker box?

Your 2021 was built outside of these dates?
This covers most of the 2021 model year -

2021 model year Gladiator built September 22, 2020 through August 9, 2021
with 3.6 and non-Mojave
That's all but the very early and very late 2021 model year.

It would still be tempting to remove the cotter pins and check the torque, depending on exactly what you are hearing or feeling.

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[chorky]

Your 2021 was built outside of these dates?
This covers most of the 2021 model year -

2021 model year Gladiator built September 22, 2020 through August 9, 2021
with 3.6 and non-Mojave
That's all but the very early and very late 2021 model year.

It would still be tempting to remove the cotter pins and check the torque, depending on exactly what you are hearing or feeling.

sorry I mistyped. i have a 2022 MY. Not ‘21. I will try to remember to check the sticker tonight and see what month it says.

what I hear and feel is a ‘quiet’ and hard to distinguish but notable deep tone ‘thunk’ when the wheel is slowly turned toward center from full lock at either side by 1/8 turn of the steering wheel. at about 1/4 steering wheel turn from full lock is when I can see the steering gear lift off of the frame by the thickness of a piece of paper or two. It can also be felt on my heels and steering wheel when sitting in the rig if paying attention.

i did feel other components as the thunk was re-created. Items like drag link, tie rod ends, etc. and didnt notice it there. But when having my hand on the bolt heads on the outside of the frame it was easily felt. So I am confident this is the source. But why…that I dont know.

 

[chorky]

Well... I'm irritated now. Stopped at the dealer yesterday. I had spoken with them on Monday or Tuesday and explained the situation. the guy on the phone even said that didn't seem right, the clunk and all. We settled on bringing it in to have someone take a peak and going from there on whether to make a full appointment or not. Reason being is my distance away from them and not having anyone to go 3 hours out of their way to drop off a vehicle for a day and another 3 hours to pick it up. Anyway, they took over 2 hours to look it over. In the end came back saying nothing was wrong, no problems found. Which is garbage because there's no way you could miss that clunk despite it being distinguishable under certain circumstances. They even said the tech drove it for a while but I told them specifically that you can only hear/feel it when parked. Driving it must be a warranty requirement...

Here's the thing. the service writer went out to the jeep with me before taking in the vehicle sounding confused of what I was explaining. he immediately could recreate it, but then said 'oh yeah I've had several of my personal dodge trucks/vehicles just always do that". Claiming it must have been something with their design. But that doesn't seem normal to me.

Now in fairness, when I got home I re-inspected myself and found the main clunk actually coming from the drag link ball joint that connects to the pitman arm. Almost like it's not lubricated... But I still see, and actually physically see, the gearbox where the front lower bolt goes into, lift off of the frame by about the thickness of a piece of paper.

maybe an engineer will happen to see this and tell me if its 'normal'. Or better yet maybe someone else could go try to re-create this on their rig and tell me if they experience the same thing or not. I dont think its right, but guess I'm gonna run it and if something bad breaks it will get fixed. Not a good start to ownership though.

 

[Maximus Gladius]

Well... I'm irritated now. Stopped at the dealer yesterday. I had spoken with them on Monday or Tuesday and explained the situation. the guy on the phone even said that didn't seem right, the clunk and all. We settled on bringing it in to have someone take a peak and going from there on whether to make a full appointment or not. Reason being is my distance away from them and not having anyone to go 3 hours out of their way to drop off a vehicle for a day and another 3 hours to pick it up. Anyway, they took over 2 hours to look it over. In the end came back saying nothing was wrong, no problems found. Which is garbage because there's no way you could miss that clunk despite it being distinguishable under certain circumstances. They even said the tech drove it for a while but I told them specifically that you can only hear/feel it when parked. Driving it must be a warranty requirement...

Here's the thing. the service writer went out to the jeep with me before taking in the vehicle sounding confused of what I was explaining. he immediately could recreate it, but then said 'oh yeah I've had several of my personal dodge trucks/vehicles just always do that". Claiming it must have been something with their design. But that doesn't seem normal to me.

Now in fairness, when I got home I re-inspected myself and found the main clunk actually coming from the drag link ball joint that connects to the pitman arm. Almost like it's not lubricated... But I still see, and actually physically see, the gearbox where the front lower bolt goes into, lift off of the frame by about the thickness of a piece of paper.

maybe an engineer will happen to see this and tell me if its 'normal'. Or better yet maybe someone else could go try to re-create this on their rig and tell me if they experience the same thing or not. I dont think its right, but guess I'm gonna run it and if something bad breaks it will get fixed. Not a good start to ownership though.

Extremely frustrating!!! I feel your pain. Do you have other jeep owners near by you hang out with or an “overland” jeep community you can get together with to get in there and figure it out? It takes a community…. Sometimes getting together with someone or a couple people to look at it together is all you need to resolve it.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Frame flex or flex due to loose bolts would be play rather than noise. Clunk is more of a joint thing.
I went under mine shortly after having the steering gear replaced and got a bit more "turn" on the bolts. Not a lot, and possibly can be accounted for by the differences in "install torque" vs. "recheck torque" (which historically varies) but it was something my OCD said had to be corrected.

Maybe it's time to get JeepCares involved - I don't mean the 1-800 support number, I mean the entity in the forum monitored by people who coordinate things between customers and dealers and kicks things to the proper bucket in the background.
If you could find a couple dozen forum members with the same clunk - then I'd agree there's a bigger issue causing dealer shops to believe it's normal (no clunk is normal, it's that simple) but those talking of a clunk are rare, and among those, it's been resolved in many cases by the ball joint TSB - remove pins, retorque, put in cotter pins.
A clunk isn't normal. It's really that easy.

 

[chorky]

Extremely frustrating!!! I feel your pain. Do you have other jeep owners near by you hang out with or an “overland” jeep community you can get together with to get in there and figure it out? It takes a community…. Sometimes getting together with someone or a couple people to look at it together is all you need to resolve it.

unfortunately no. Well..there is a veterans group but I dont hang out with them a whole lot cause they're over 2 hours away.... I live in a pretty remote area by most peoples terms. one of my coworkers knows vehicles quite well, as do I. So it's not a issue of figuring it out. Its more of an issue of if this is 'normal' for gladiators and what, if anything, Jeep can and will do about it. As of currently they dont see it as a problem at all. In fact, the technician notes say 'no problems found' - which is total BS! because there is a very distinguished clunk if you pay attention. Under no circumstance IMO is a steering system clunk 'normal'. Especially for a vehicle with less than 600 miles on it. Were not in the 80's anymore.

Frame flex or flex due to loose bolts would be play rather than noise. Clunk is more of a joint thing.
I went under mine shortly after having the steering gear replaced and got a bit more "turn" on the bolts. Not a lot, and possibly can be accounted for by the differences in "install torque" vs. "recheck torque" (which historically varies) but it was something my OCD said had to be corrected.

Maybe it's time to get JeepCares involved - I don't mean the 1-800 support number, I mean the entity in the forum monitored by people who coordinate things between customers and dealers and kicks things to the proper bucket in the background.
If you could find a couple dozen forum members with the same clunk - then I'd agree there's a bigger issue causing dealer shops to believe it's normal (no clunk is normal, it's that simple) but those talking of a clunk are rare, and among those, it's been resolved in many cases by the ball joint TSB - remove pins, retorque, put in cotter pins.
A clunk isn't normal. It's really that easy.

yeah I failed to mention to them the TSB about the ball joints. But from the TSB you posted it doesn't apply to my rig since mine is a 2022 MY... I agree getting JeepCar involved is a good idea but it would be nice to have at least a couple other forum members share if they do or don't experience this same thing. Part of it is my extremely high OCD is what made me find it. Any 'normal' person who typically doesn't pay attention to much of anything would just attribute it to something on the road lol. Also having a background as a master tech for Ford back in the day gives me an advantage of knowing what should and should not be normal. I still feel like the torque on the steering gear bolts are not correct. Either that or for some reason the gear is trying to move the wheels more than their limit mark and it is placing extreme pressure on the gear/frame connection forcing the ball join to move and clunk - but that doesn't seem right either.


@JeepCares - can you provide any information on this topic? It is spring bear season and I really need to be getting up into the woods. Only got 3 more weeks.... The dealer I visited was nice enough, and took me in on the spot even though they were full with other customers, so I dont want to put them on blast just yet and want to keep a good relationship as they are the only dealer within 200 miles of me, but this does not seem to be a normal situation. I have a feeling the tech didn't even understand the concern because the service writer said 'because its warranty all I can say on the concern line is 'customer says front end clunk''. If their inability to find the problem results in major frame damage, will I be getting a new vehicle? Since they said 'no problems found' I'm going to just run it...until it gets worse. seems like the liability is not on me at this point.

 

[Maximus Gladius]

Have you tried creating that noise with the front end up, no load and get a bar in there to find slack somewhere? “Drive it till it breaks”…that bugs the crap out of me because at the end of the day that’s what’s needed and it goes against warranty/rule mandates and makes you feel you’re not being responsible to treat your rig like that.

That is not a normal sound. I never had that problem in all of my 32k kms.

 

[chorky]

Have you tried creating that noise with the front end up, no load and get a bar in there to find slack somewhere? “Drive it till it breaks”…that bugs the crap out of me because at the end of the day that’s what’s needed and it goes against warranty/rule mandates and makes you feel you’re not being responsible to treat your rig like that.

That is not a normal sound. I never had that problem in all of my 32k kms.

I currently do not have the location/ability/tools to get it up in the air myself enough to be able to tug at things like you suggest. Although I am more than willing to bet the condition would not present itself if unloaded....

Yeah I know what you mean - drive it till it breaks. I have always hated that statement. Even though sometimes its actually needed. But it doesn't make it feel any better and makes one loose trust in reliability - for me that's a big deal. 5 minutes outside of town and I have a hundred miles of NO cell signal, and no tow truck is gonna come get me. Even on the highway here its tough to get a tow.

Based on what I saw yesterday, I currently have 2 concerns. 1) bolts on the gearbox not fully tight, or some sort of manufacturer flaw. 2) somethings up with the track bar ball joint like it was never lubricated from the factory during construction.

The good news is, I dont see anything that is so obvious there will be a critical failure at highway speeds.. The bad news is I am concerned that over time there could be irreparable damage to the frame from the gearbox movement even though its maybe 1/2 MM of movement - just enough to physically see.

 

[chorky]

Well here we are still clunking. I did take it off highway about 20 miles the other day. mostly to test out the lockers and sway disco. I really like that sway disco. I sure wish there was a way to make one for the rear....

The extremely mild off highway action did not seem to make the noise any worse. Steering is still pretty tight. We shall see if time changes it. I might put on some paint or something around the gearbox and the bolts to see just how much it is moving around in real driving as turning the wheels in a parking lot is not a good gauge of real life especially when flexed and stressed. I hope it turns into nothing. But gotta say it makes me 'nervous' with a brand new vehicle.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I really like that sway disco. I sure wish there was a way to make one for the rear....

If I recall correctly, disconnecting the rear sway bar made no real difference in off-road articulation. I believe there's even discussion of that here. I know there are YT videos on it.

 

[chorky]

If I recall correctly, disconnecting the rear sway bar made no real difference in off-road articulation. I believe there's even discussion of that here. I know there are YT videos on it.

Yeah I'm not so concerned about getting extra articulation as I am more comfort. No more serious off-road action for this guy, too old for that. Disconnecting the front made a huge difference in comfort (old broken vet here). Even more comfortable than my TJ with anti-rock. So I figure the rear being disconnected, or having rear anti-rock, would also be more comfortable. The only time it really rocked hard side to side was when the rear was coming off a bump, or out of a dip. and that was due to the swayer transferring energy - as it should.

But this darn clunk is driving me nuts. Even if it was 'normal' - which I cannot accept that - its annoying.

 

[SuperBeast]

Not sure If it will apply but I know a JLU owner that had to reinforce the frame side track bar bolt hole as the threads from the bolt wallowed out the hole a few MM which allowed play/movement at that connection. I do not know if it made a noise or how it was discovered but it may be another point to check even if the track bar bolt is torqued properly.

 

[chorky]

Not sure If it will apply but I know a JLU owner that had to reinforce the frame side track bar bolt hole as the threads from the bolt wallowed out the hole a few MM which allowed play/movement at that connection. I do not know if it made a noise or how it was discovered but it may be another point to check even if the track bar bolt is torqued properly.

Interesting. I will have to check this over the weekend if possible. My access to the correct tools at the moment is slim at best.


Still got the clunk. It seems louder now. Although it is only noticeable when making tight turns. I have not had a chance to roll slowly over a speed bump while near full lock to see if that does anything as speed bumps are very few and far between for me. I still cannot believe that the dealership refused to even check the torque on any of the bolts even when specifically requested. Oh and I did tighten up the gearbox bolts some. They were pretty tight already. But it is odd that when at full lock the gearbox still gets enough space between the flange and the frame that you can slide a thin piece of paper in it.

Just wondering how long I should let it go before taking it back in for a second time. Like papa said above - a clunk in the steering or suspension is not normal. Period. Its that easy.... especially for brand new and modern as it is.

 

[TomH]

I have the same clunk. Only when i turn to the right and then back to center it clunks. So just when moving to center from the right. After a brief look at it, it feels like the gear box. I will look at the frame bolts tomorrow. It does feel like it is moving ever so slightly. I go for my last free oil change next week. I'll see what they say

 

[TomH]

I tightened the frame bolts on the steering gear. Didn't really change anything. Went for the last free oil change and had the dealer take a look. They tightened the lower ball joints and the steering felt much better but the clunk was still there. They have ordered a new drag link and pitman arm. The end of the drag link has some movement in it, so that should be the fix. Not sure why they are replacing the pitman arm.

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