Clunk and loose steering wheel on right turns

Yesterday, my Jimny made a strange "clunk" when taking a right turn. Nothing seemed wrong. However, today I heard the same clunk again - only when doing a right turn and only when returning quickly the steering wheel to center position. After some mud driving today, the clunk appeared more frequently:

- on bumps, when driving straight
- when turning right and quickly turning the wheel back.

On good asphalt, a very serious case of deathwobbleitis developed (around 35-40 mph the whole car starts shaking like Boney M, even if I have a steering dampener installed). Had to drive all the way like in Sandra Bullock's "Speed" movie - always be over 60 mph :laugh:

The steering wheel seems to be much more "loose" when turning right also; usually, it's enough to move the wheel 10-15 degrees of a circle and the car changes course. Turning left is fine, but right turns require me to turn the wheel at least 90 degrees before anything happens.

After arriving home, I noticed the strangest thing: with the engine turned off, simply turning the steering wheel just a little (in the range of Jimny normal steering wheel play) is enough to make the whole car shake seriously (like someone would be outside pushing and rocking the car).

Knackered bush ? the 4 suspension arms look fine.
Stuck/broken pitman arm or tie rod ?

What else to check ? any suggestion is appreciated.

Sorry I'm stuck in the stocks overnight but good luck with sorting it, you don't need this sort of issue worst of all in winter ..

have a check of your kingpin bearings

www.jimny.se/kingpinbearings.html

hope this helps

I was afraid of that, but was wondering if they can break down so quickly? it basically went from one small clunk to the above described situation in under 50 km.

Is it safe to drive it like that for a little while? I would need to drive about 80km to reach a properly equipped garage.

Well, put up the right wheel today (first time using the factory jack, strange way to do it ... I think a better one is in order). Shaken the wheel in all directions - nothing, it's rock solid. Checked for leakages - nothing again, dry as a bone. So it's not the kingpins... hmm.

Upon further poking and prodding, I managed to find the problem. The adjustable Panhard rod's adjustment is knackered:

I've tried to explain it better with the image below:

Basically, the thread inside the yellow circle is gone (and by looking closely at the above pictures, it's also bent). The Panhard rod is supposed to act like a "solid" bar, meaning parts A and B should move together.

However, since the thread is gone, parts A and B move almost independently now.

When steering LEFT (which is working ok now), the B part of the Panhard slides to the left on the thread and pushes against the A part (red arrow, I reversed the arrow colours by mistake).

When steering RIGHT (which is not working ok), the B part slides to the right (green arrow). Since the thread is gone, it does not pull the A part at the same time and it stays behind.

Time to find a new adjustable Panhard it seems.

So the thread has come out of the tube then?
Can it be temporarily fixed with a quick weld? (presumably you don't need to adjust the rod anymore anyway?)