Severe Uncommanded alignment/steering changes, need help

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Johnwk

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06 LS V8, about 138k miles. In short, after an alignment, will run 1-50 miles before if is out of whack and usually sitting with the steering wheels about 15 degrees to the right while I go straight. Occasionally a tight turn or nasty bump will randomly immediately change to sitting 20 degrees steering wheel left to go straight. the next bump may return it to the right.

More details: I blew the motor 2 years ago. Bought a junkyard motor and had a shop swap, was pricey but works now no issue. But that is when this steering/alignment issue began. Since then, I have had it aligned 6 times, replaced the tires, front wheel bearings, all the front suspension control arms (minus one Ball joint, which was still in good shape, didn't wanna press it in) tie rod ends, and sway bar links. Still have the same issue, and the other day, I attacked a left corner and it came out squeeling bad. Got out and checked, both front tires were toe in, I would say 5-10 degrees total. Was slowly limping it to the shop, but the next right turn with a bump re-aligned everything again, although the steering wheel still had the 15 degrees right position. Shop I'm at now (same one that swapped the motor, but only did the first of the 6 alignments) said once again "alignments bad!", but obviously something deeper is causing the problem to occur over and over again. I think the only things I have not touched on the steering system is the rack and pinion, and the actual steering column? Am I correct on that? I thought the Rack and pinion had to come lose to swap the motor out the bottom of the car, but the guy that worked on the swap was there today and said he didn't have to touch it. What else could I be missing at this point? I'm at a loss, everyone says I should sell the car and cut my losses, but I'm not going to let this beat me, I want to figure it out.
 
I know that some have pulled the engine of these machines through the hood, but the service manual says that you need to drop it out of the bottom of the car with the entire front subframe. That subframe bolts to the body with 4 long bolts. If they followed the manual, they disturbed those bolts. That alone will leave your drive train out of line, so the fix is to rack the car up on a lift and remove all 4 wheels. Then loosen those subframe bolts and measure from reference points from each rear wheel to its respective front wheel. The measurements from side to side need to be equal, or the car will track sideways, leading to the cocked steering wheel. I know this because I did this around 8 years ago and the wheel was crooked since then. On your car, I would almost suspect that the whole front subframe is loose. It is something you won't notice with the weight of the car on the suspension. I had things like that happen after installing Mevotech front knuckles with 5 month ball joints. The ball joints seized up shortly after installing them, and when they do that, there is so much pressure inside the ball joint that with failed lubrication, it can actually hold the stud side of the ball joint fixed inside the ball joint and when you steer the car it is so stuck that it can unscrew the new nylock nut on the ball joint that gets torqued to 111 lb ft! I had that happen and the nut would actually end up a couple of turns off snug in one 90 mile trip. What happened to me was the above scenario, and when a ball joint gets loose, your alignment is shot and your steering is out of control. I was hitting bridge transitions at 70 mph and the bounce of the car would throw the steering off so badly that the car would shift over a half a lane on its own. The telltale sign was a visibly loose nut at the destination of the trip, after torquing the nut before beginning the drive. So if you have a bad ball joint, and certain ones can go bad in short order, like the ones I bought from rock auto from mevotech, you could have loose ball joint nuts, which is easy to verify. Also, your steering rack should not be able to react this way that you describe. There is a second little subframe under the front main K brace (subframe) that the lower control arms mount to, and that is where they adjust camber, I believe, by using cam bolts that move the front half of the lower control arm in azimuth. That same area holds the sway bar. I think that the cars came without cam bolts in that area and we needed to purchase them aftermarket and replace the factory non-cam bolts, if we wanted to be able to make that adjustment. This could also be a problem with holding alignments and should be checked into in detail. Another slight possibility is control arm bushings in both upper and lower control arms. It seems to me that something is loose up there. Troubleshooting can be a pain and will need to unload some pressures from the suspension to fully and freely check these items. Sway bar link should be removed on one side, which will allow either wheel to move independently. The front shocks would also be likely to keep everything stressed in the fully extended position, so they would need to be disconnected as well. Once there is no longer pressure being applied, all bushings and joints would be easy to rule out as failed, as a failed component will be easy to spot with movement application via pry bar or even hands.

The fact that this started when the engine got changed is key here, along with knowing that the proper technique is dropping the entire engine and trans assembly through the bottom. And also knowing that these bolts can break, as someone here recently noted, there could be serious safety issues as a result of such things taking place. When I did mine 8 years ago, those long subframe bolts were creaking and jumping for the first few turns, using a breaker bar. I got lucky with none of them breaking. Check those areas and maybe ask how they did the engine swap, to see if they disturbed those bolts. It seems like they must have, since the car steers off center since then.
 
I'll have to ask an see with the shop on that, but wow that doesn't sound like a cheap job...I'm certianly not equipped to do anything that serious myself either, I'm sure the shop ain't gonna be cheap on that.
 
Did you check the the front lower control bushings for breakage by use of a long bar?
 
You are basically going to have to go through every suspension component on the car to make sure what all needs replaced.

Keep in mind that the upper control arms have a non replaceable ball joint that ends up being a wear point, so you will need to buy complete upper control arms.

Buy the Lemforder UCA's. They are the factory Jag replacement arms

Lower control arm bushings can be had cheaply but are a pain to press in.

Stay away from the Mevotech parts. They are junk.
 
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The left rear lower factory control arm rear bushing is a know failure point too. Get a new rear lower control arm and be done with it. Replace the rear passenger lower control arm too

You will also want to look at the left rear coil spring. Look for a broken spring tail. If bad... Replace both rear springs at the same time.

Have a shop do those, because the pressure of the springs on the shock will take your head off.
 
Then there's still the issue of the front ball joints being bad, and possibly needing replaced. Either way... I wouldn't take the vehicle back to the same shop.

They seem like inexperienced hacks. They never should have let you drive away with all the issues the car has.
 
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I replaced the upper controls arms, and lower control arms on the front, including one of the lower control arm bushings (the other one was is good shape overall still). This did noticably stiffen the car up in corners, it wasn't sloppy like before, but my issue of the alignment changes have occured the same before I changed this, as well as after.

I have not checked things in the rear at all, but how would that be causing the front alignment to change constantly?

As for this shop, in their defense, they have only done one alignment after the engine swap (which despite being pricy was done with only one issue, which was quickly corrected), and when I personally test drove it, it was fine at the time. I'm not messing with the shop that had it aligned like 4 times anymore.
 
Well if the shop only did a front end alignment, and you have worn parts in the rear, then you might be dealing with that.

When the rear toe links wear out... that can cause some pretty squirrely handling in the rear... especially if other components in the rear are worn out too.
 
I'll have them take a look at rear toe links first thing monday morning. Don't think I or a shop has been back there for any reason but new tires.
 
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