Just a few more steps to getting the XJR to a state where I'm comfortable using it as a 50mi/day DD. All the major things left are tracing down a wheel bearing noise, and this suspension issue.

About two months ago, when I was first able to start driving the XJR on open roads, I noticed it was pulling left. To drive straight, I'm fighting the steering a bit and wheel points towards about 1 o'clock to go straight. I looked through the front suspension components, put a prybar on the bushings, didn't see anything worn or find play except for the sway bar links looking a bit weathered. Thought everything was good, so I took it in for an alignment.

I pick up the car from the shop, still exact same issue. The alignment chart looked good. At this point I had other things to do so I went back in the next day. They went over the front end alignment again the next day, and it seemed fine when driving it after then. They didn't mention worn ball joints or anything.

Fast forward a month, it is now still pulling left, with the exact same amount of pull (1 o'clock keeps car straight). More noticeable at highway speeds. HOWEVER, sometimes, especially after wiggling the car a certain way (which I can't find a way to replicate) it seems to "straighten out" and drive with the wheel centered and no pull.

There doesn't seem to be any pull under hard braking, but I have noticed that at the first onset of light braking, at any speed, there's a small knock that can be slightly felt through the steering wheel and brake pedal, and the same slight knock again when letting completely off the brake as I guess whatever in the suspension "settles" back into it's rest position. This I can consistently replicate. When doing brake pads I inspected the caliper pin bushings and they looked like-new, so I don't think it's the calipers knocking on the pins, but I have new bushings to put in there at some point soon.

There's no play felt in the steering if wiggling the wheel back and forth when dry-steering (my go-to quick and dirty test for tie rod ends). I feel a slight bit of play in the steering column (about 2-3 degrees) which I'm guessing could be a worn u joint in the steering column. Either way that should only cause the wheel to point off, not pulling to one side.

So,
What could cause these sort of symptoms with the steering? I thought at first it could be a control arm "sliding" along the length of the CA bushings/pivot bolt, especially with the braking knock, but it doesn't make sense for the settling of the suspension one way or another. Could the ball joints be worn in the "forward-backward" direction relative to the car enough to settle like this, but not be noticeable when wiggled by hand? Or could there be something else completely unrelated to wishbones/hub? I'd try and check again in person but I managed to screw up my back doing rear subframe, so it may be a week or two before I'm comfortable rolling around on my driveway again.

 

Are you serious about "looking' at the suspension components? That is unlikely to tell you anything about the condition of the balljoints. The only way to find wear in the front lower balljoints is the jack the car up, and then put a pry bar between the tire and the ground. Lever the wheel upwards, and you will see any play in the lower balljoint.

The upper ones are easier : again, with the car jacked up, grab the top of the wheel and pull and push it (towards and away from the engine)

However, in my experience, the most frequent cause of pulling to one side is the tires. They always have a certain degree of bias to one side. Even a small bias, when added to the road crown, will result in noticable pull. What I try to do is use the bias to counteract the road crown.

Try rotating the tires (you can just swap the two fronts).

 

Have you had your tires checked for separation or a broken belt? This is doubtful, but I would check the steering universals also. I've been through similar and found I had a bad tire.
Something else to check...https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ite-up-169352/

 

By "looking" at the suspension I did mean jacking the car up, grabbing the wheel and checking for play, prybaring, etc. was all done. It's definitely possible and likely that I didn't test all possible degrees of freedom with the prybar. I didn't try prying between the tire and the ground, I will put that on for what to try.

The tires have about 250 miles on them so far, installed late Jan. This pulling to one side was happening before the tire change, with the old questionable cheapo tires that came with the car. I'll try rotating tires when I'm able to and seeing if the symptoms change.

The bearing change is good to know, especially that it can be done without a press. I'll add it to my list, and will do it while I'm there if I diagnose the rumble as coming from the back and do wheel bearing.

 

Prying the tire up against the ground showed slight play in the lower driver's side ball joint. Looks like I'll be buying a press after all and any other small tools I need. May do the upper ball joint just to be safe, it didn't have any play but the boot was torn, and I'll be in there anyway...

Pried on everything else I could just to be sure, couldn't get any of the CA bushings to "shift" so here's hoping the ball joints take care of it.

 

Some play is to be expected without being a problem. Other thing to look at would be bushings for tie-rods, etc that could otherwise cause play in the suspension and allow metal on metal making a clunk. I know my shock bushings are bad on the top and I do have some chance of noise there. With the pulling to one direction isn't typical of ball joints but alignment. Ball joints will rattle and wear tires odd but not usually aggressive on how the car drives.

 

There could be multiple things going on.

Concerning your light braking noise...
While applying and releasing the brake pedal and hearing a noise, you can have brake pads shifting in their carrier and cause a "click". However, it's not going to be strong enough for you to feel in the brake pedal and steering column from which you describe. Between this resonating noise that you feel in your steering column and brake pedal sounds just like a bad lower control arm bushing on the left front. That would also make sense for your 1 o'clock steering wheel correction to go straight down the road. Those 2 lower control bushings have 2 jobs. 1) To keep the control arm supported from excessive fore and aft movement. 2) To support the lower control arm while going over bumps. There is rotational force being applied to those bushings over bumps. While going down the road and your holding the steering wheel at 1 o'clock position with a failed lower control arm bushing allows the control arm to move towards the rear and causes negative caster on that side. The faster you go means the more that arm wants to move rearward which is why you said it gets worse with more speed. While your car was on the alignment rack, the suspension is at rest which is why it didn't show any issues on the printout you received. Its only while the car has to be moving down the road to act up. It's a time consuming job that requires special tools. To change out those LCA bushings.

If you replace both front sway bar end links, replace the sway bar bushings as well. They may not look bad but, they make a "soft thud" over bumps and are easily overlooked when trying to find noises.

Concerning your steering wheel play...

If you can verify you have no inner and outer tie rod end play and your steering rack bushings are ok, more than likely you will need a steering rack. I just went thru this with my car and the play was in the steering gear itself.

 

That's exactly the explanation I was looking for. The play in the lower ball joint didn't seem like it was enough to cause this much change, or settling, on its own. Aside from a press it doesn't look like there's too much special tools involved according to JTIS, mostly ball joint separators, with the big hurdle being the spring compressor tool. I've seen a couple designs on the forums so I'll look at those and see where to go from there. My work actually has a tool that would possibly adapt to being used as a spring compressor, but it may cost more than the factory Jag tool...

Are the bushings the same front and rear? I've looked on various sites and found that some reference the same part for both front and rear LCA bushings (part MNE1360BB ) where some sites point to a differently sized front bushing ( MNE1360AB ). (EDIT: most sites list the *AB bushing as being superseded by the *BB bushing, jaguar classic parts still lists the *AB bushing as the correct LCA front bushing for cars below vin f45036)

I took some time with the steering play yesterday, there's no play in the section of column inside the cabin, and I didn't see any movement in either side inner or outer tie rod end while rocking the steering in that few degrees of dead zone. I'll have to check connections between the column and rack underneath the car at some point, but it looks like it's probably a worn rack like you said. There was a thread recently on adjusting steering gear preload; if nothing else works I'll try that, not much to lose if I need to replace the rack anyway.

 

Spring compressors are somewhat easy to make, like you said, there are a few posted here and doing a Bing or Google search. I added the galvanized 3" pipe to be able to get out of the spring well and use a box end ratchet to prevent knuckle smacking. I made these about 10 yrs ago:

 

The problem you have with a clonk in the steering coloumn will be the rear subframe bushes. They rip and tear and then you get the feeling in the brake pedal and steering coloumn. Not a fun job to replace, as the entire front axle needs to be removed.

Here you can see how they look after 18 years on a rather low mileage X308 4.0l:




To remove the axle takes about 2-3 hours
To take the axle apart takes about 2 hours
To get the bushes replaced on the subframe takes 2 hours (let Jaguar do it)
To reassemble the axle takes about 4 hours
To fit the axle another 2 hours
And then an alignment

As I did this, I replaced all bushes and balljoints to make sure it isn't required to be done again sometime soon.

And as all X308 are in that age, where rubber is getting dry and cracking, this issue will be becoming more and more common... After it was changed, there is NO clonk sound at all. The other bushes were actually okay just these were shagged.

 

Were you able to see the cracking in the rearward front subframe bushings while they were installed, or was it only once the subframe was out? I don't remember seeing any cracking on mine, but I didn't spend much time looking, or ever prying on those...

According to the manual it looks like they just press in/out. Which sounds easy enough, especially if I end up getting a press, but the front subframe looks like a bear to remove, even compared to the rear. If I'm going to be dropping the front subframe, I'll definitely want to do Vee's and motor mounts at the very least while in there, if not all the other bushings that will be accessible then.

 

The subframe is very awkward to handle with... If you can get the right size press tools for it... Important to fit them in a certain position.

Regarding the cracks: impossible to see when installed.

 

As I did that axle, I replaced everything that can go wrong.

All bushes, all balljounts, all bearings. It is just worth it. Especially when you have it in pieces...

 

Haven't been able to do anything with this yet, my LCA bushings haven't been shipped yet, and been dealing with my crank pulley spinning off, still need to get a press, can't justify spending money making the car run straight if the car won't run at all.

While I was under there, I looked closer at those rearward front subframe bushings and saw that they both looked like they were "shifted" off to one side. Couldn't get a prybar in there with how little space I had to work with, but it seems like they could be sliding left/right and causing the whole front subframe to point to one side and cause the pulling. Or my frame's bent? Pics to follow, done as best as I could.


pass side

drivers side

close up attempt

 

I'm not saying they are bad, but from the pics, they at least appear similar to what Daim posted. But, with a limited view, its a difficult conclusion.

 

That's what I'm thinking as well, I'll put those bushings on the list along with all the tools to do the job.

 

They are dead.

 

A year and change later, and I still haven't quite figured it out! I'm running out of thoughts and think I have it narrowed down to a couple causes.

It's much better than it used to be, the knocking is gone, rides much better, but it still pulls to the left some of the time (maddeningly inconsistently). It seems like after a hard right turn, it has more of a tendency to pull left, while after hard left turns, it has more of a tendency to steer on-center. Being in the US, most highway on ramps etc are right turns... On top of that, sometimes at high speeds on windy days it feels like the front end isn't quite as stable as it should be when a big gust hits.. Not severely unstable, but a bit concerning.

It took me a long time to get to it, but a few months ago I addressed all the known issues above. I did:
-Both round front subframe bushings (they were indeed dead)
-left side Vee mount w/ OEM
-both LCA's including ball joint and bushing
-Upper left ball joint
-Motor mounts
-Alignment
-updated upper steering column (old one had play)

After all that it still pulls. The shop said the readings were good after the alignment but they also noted the pull to the side in the test drive, and said it may be a defective tire?? Get no play when wrenching on the wheels in the air. Tie rod ends seem good. The only thing I can think of in the front end of the car that's left is the steering rack itself.

Is it possible that one of the inner tie rod ends on the steering rack is shifting under load? In a way that under turning right, it shifts to the "wrong" position, but after turning left, it shifts to the "right" position at which the alignment was done? I couldn't notice anything like that in the air but it's hard to match the load made by turning the car, by hand...

The other suspicion, which is much worse... The car had a bad front end collision in its history. Could the frame be misaligned in such a way that the alignment readings show fine in the shop, but the frame misalignment shifts the suspension geometry so that it doesn't work properly when actually driving?

I haven't been able to swap the tires to test the defective tire theory yet, but I have a feeling it won't be that.

 

If one of your inner rods were bad, a good alignment guy should had noticed and said something. For the wracked body from the wreck suspicion, yes it could.
I'd have the tires road force balanced, that took care of most of my issue. Do you have an aggressive tire pattern and what type are your wheels? An aggressive pattern on a 9.5" wide wheel can wreak havoc and may need to be changed.

 

Hi nilanium,

You've covered most of the likely suspects.

My first suspect would have been the lower control arm bushings, but you've replaced the entire arms, presumably with new bushings.

It sounds like you've checked the front wheel bearings - what about the rears?

Is there any possibility that one of the left-side brake calipers is not releasing properly and the pads are remaining in contact with the rotor, causing the car to pull to the left?

The rear subframe bushings, part 13 in the diagram below, have a surprising impact on steering. Just thinking out loud, if the right bushing was perished, it might allow the rear subframe to torque to the right during right hand cornering. When you straighten up, the subframe/rear wheels pointing to the right would cause the vehicle to steer to the left (rear-wheel steering has the opposite effect of front-wheel steering).




We'll keep thinking!

Cheers,

Don