Strange wheel vibration

Gents,

With the risk of being repeated, I would like to ask your opinion, on a strange vibration which has developed on my truck and I can't find a solution for. I am not sure if you would characterise it as "death wobble" or something else, so please bear with me.

Here are the symptoms:

When I cross a small poth hole, nothing big, maybe the sewer covers which are not level with the road, with one wheel going into it, I can feel a strange vibration on the steering wheel. I took the time to look at the driver's wheel while driving, and what I noticed is a wierd oscillation as if some one is turning the wheel left and right in a relatively rapid fashion. This same motion can be seen sometimes, even as I am driving over uneven road. The oscillation stops after a couple of repeats and does not escalate to something causing you to .... in your pants. However, it is annoying. Please notice that I have absolutely no vibration if I cross a bump, which makes both wheels to move, like a speed bump.

Here is the details of the truck:

1984 XJ, 2.5 lt with manual and 207. Lift is around 5.5" with Rusty's 4.5" kit, including less than a year old:

- lower fixed control arms
- adjustable uppers
- track bar with heavy duty bushing end and frame mount, very tightly bolted.
- steering stabilizer
- Bilstein shocks (brand new, the same thing happened with the one-month old OME shocks I had before)
- steering box is not new, but in very good condition

Alignment details:

- all TREs are tight, no play noticed by the alignment people, same with ball joints, same with the bearings
- Caster is at 6.5 degrees, a bit more on the left than on the right side
- Toe-in is zero or very very little positive
- front axle is absolutely centered with the rear
- all bushings are tight, no decernible play athe the control arm mounts

Any thoughts would be sincerely appreciated, as I do not know what to do from now on.

Kind regards

I will say I had been trying to track down a similar problem on my 90. I went to more alignment shops than I car to mention. Most of them aligned it and sent me on my way. Well, The last shop spent a lot of time looking at it. There was a bad ball joint on the passenger side, it caused my driverside tire to wear funny. Point is it took a few shops to figure it out and most of them just aligned it and you can't align a frontend with bad ball joints. Find a good alignment shop that works on 18 wheelers and stuff.

LT1XJ said:

I will say I had been trying to track down a similar problem on my 90. I went to more alignment shops than I car to mention. Most of them aligned it and sent me on my way. Well, The last shop spent a lot of time looking at it. There was a bad ball joint on the passenger side, it caused my driverside tire to wear funny. Point is it took a few shops to figure it out and most of them just aligned it and you can't align a frontend with bad ball joints. Find a good alignment shop that works on 18 wheelers and stuff.

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LT1XJ,

Thanks for the tip, there is one minor problem though. We do not have 18 wheelers here, Greece does not have that many highways!

The problem is that at least 3 different alignment shops have seen it and all of them agree with my mechanic, that there is absolutely no play in either the TREs or the ball joints.

I am currently thinking of ordering a knuckle-to-knuckle steering setup, since I have no idea what else to look for. Oh well, maybe the installation of the RE drop brackets will magically solve the steering problem as well.

Rgds and many thanks

How much of a vibration is it? I know on both of my XJ's when I'm on an area of road, usually near the intersection, the road is wavvy from all the heavy traffic. It is there the steering wheel will pull a bit. This also happens when the road is slanted, I believe the culprit may be your OEM steering setup, in the inverted Y the toe changes due to the unevenness of the road. With any kind of lift the inverted Y angles are stretched and makes this more obvious. If this is the same problem you probably had it all the time, you just didn't notice it until now.

XJCHUCK72 said:

How much of a vibration is it? I know on both of my XJ's when I'm on an area of road, usually near the intersection, the road is wavvy from all the heavy traffic. It is there the steering wheel will pull a bit. This also happens when the road is slanted, I believe the culprit may be your OEM steering setup, in the inverted Y the toe changes due to the unevenness of the road. With any kind of lift the inverted Y angles are stretched and makes this more obvious. If this is the same problem you probably had it all the time, you just didn't notice it until now.

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Chuck,

I know I didn't have it, because the first thing I noticed was a vibration at the steering wheel. The wheel moved left and right two or three times, in the beginning it was very light, but you sure could feel it. It got worst at some point, but it coincided with a damaged engine mount, so I thought that may be the engine had play and being so heavy the movement was passed to the steering. When the engine mount was changed, without any effect, I knew I had to look for something else.

Having been subjected to a long ordeal with the steering, I am very sensitive and can feel the slightest change. I am not talking about the simple change of the toe-in as the suspension follows up the road irregularities, I am talking about a real vibration, some times you can even feel it on the pedals.

What puzzles me is that everything is new, or relatively new, so there is nothing to change except the TREs and the ball joints. However, every mechanic that has looked at it, said that there is absolutely no play at any of them.

One more question here. I am considering getting Zion Dunn's steering setup (a one piece tie-rod from knuckle to knuckle with a drag link going from the pitman to the tie-rod, picture below).



Do you think that this will help? At least all the TREs will be changed to new, bigger ones.

Details at Zion Dunn's site

Rgds and thanks for taking the time to write.

I know it sounds funny but I just can't stand the pain.....
Did you have your wheels balanced again? XJs have got to be the most sensitive to wheel balance of anything on the road! Just another thing to look into....

John
Check your email

Jump This said:

I know it sounds funny but I just can't stand the pain.....
Did you have your wheels balanced again? XJs have got to be the most sensitive to wheel balance of anything on the road! Just another thing to look into....

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No, and this is one thing I want to check this week. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Rgds

I would check the following things: Wheel Bearing, Tie Rods, and Loose or Worn Steering Components. Larger tries will take its toll on all of these components. I have two cherokees and I am a mechanic and have seen these things before. Hope you find it, if you want to E-mail for some further info, feel free. Kevin [email protected]

Minor steering wheel vibe at 45-55 MPH and different associated bumps....

Check the steering stabilizer. It's relatively cheap to replace but R&R of that solved my wobble.

-Sticks

Check out the steering box. If it's worn it can cause some/ a lot of wheel vibs. Juice

Ditto on the steering stabilizer. Also check for bad tires and/or bent wheels. I had a defective tire cause the same problem. I tried replacing the stabilitzer first, it didn't fix the problem entirely, but it reduced the symptoms immensely. The tire was replaced under warranty.

RR3

I had the same type of problem with my XJ when I went to 5" of lift. It was really bad (even went to DW a few times) until I installed the heavy duty track bar end (Rusty's). A weird thing I noticed is that it was worse when the temp outside was hotter. The only play I could find was alot of movement in the track bar poly bushings. So I bored out the center of the bushing to 3/4". Then I made some custom spacers to put inside the bushings (3/4" O.D., 1/2" I.D., 1 9/16" long). I drilled out the axle bracket to accept a 1/2" bolt. This eliminated about 75% of the wobble. Then I installed the RE drop brackets and it's amost 100% gone now. Still get a very little bit of wobble when I hit a large bump at highway speeds.

FrankNBrew said:

I had the same type of problem with my XJ when I went to 5" of lift. It was really bad (even went to DW a few times) until I installed the heavy duty track bar end (Rusty's). A weird thing I noticed is that it was worse when the temp outside was hotter. The only play I could find was alot of movement in the track bar poly bushings. So I bored out the center of the bushing to 3/4". Then I made some custom spacers to put inside the bushings (3/4" O.D., 1/2" I.D., 1 9/16" long). I drilled out the axle bracket to accept a 1/2" bolt. This eliminated about 75% of the wobble. Then I installed the RE drop brackets and it's amost 100% gone now. Still get a very little bit of wobble when I hit a large bump at highway speeds.

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I am sure that you have given me this mod before, and I was eagerly looking for it again, but I couldn't find it. If I am not mistaken, it was on a thread about Rusty's track bar.

I sincerely appreciate the input. This will be done when the drop brackets will be installed, hopefully this week.

Thanks dear friend.

use those adjustable UCA and set the caster at around 4 degrees. Both RE and Teraflex suggest this to help this problem. This will also get your pinion angle where it should be at your lift height. Look at my other posts for the explanation why this works.

Duane said:

use those adjustable UCA and set the caster at around 4 degrees. Both RE and Teraflex suggest this to help this problem. This will also get your pinion angle where it should be at your lift height. Look at my other posts for the explanation why this works.

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Duane, your quotes aren't quite accurate. RE recommends setting castor to "factory minimum" which is >5°. Your Teraflex quote is for a Grand Cherokee and is "4° to 5°" plus setting toe to .25 in. Are you recommending excess toe-in too?

sticksnstonesrus said:

Minor steering wheel vibe at 45-55 MPH and different associated bumps....

Check the steering stabilizer. It's relatively cheap to replace but R&R of that solved my wobble.

-Sticks

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You didnt solve anything,you just masked it!Steering stablizers were only intended to reduce kick-back,alot of vehicles never had them.All you have done is to put a band-aid on some other unidentified problem,it will be back!

Duane said:

use those adjustable UCA and set the caster at around 4 degrees. Both RE and Teraflex suggest this to help this problem. This will also get your pinion angle where it should be at your lift height. Look at my other posts for the explanation why this works.

Click to expand...

Duane,

Ins't 4 degrees kind of low? I mean, the factory recommends 6-8 and I was pretty happy to be able to reach 6.5, somehow going doen to 4 does not seem appropriate to me.

Rgds

I had the exact problem you have discribed and the first time it was bad michelon street tires. I put on my lift and it was still there. I replaced tires with big swampers and it was gone. Then when my swampers wore out it came back. I replaced them with another pair of MT's and it went away again. I would agree to it being tires not parts. At the time I had all this going on I was at 3" of lift I now have 5" with the same MT's and it hasn't came back yet. I have since put on Adjustable UCA's and Adjustable LCA's with poly bushings. Rides better than new. HTH Doug

John ,

all I can say is give it a try. You will not notice a great reduction in directional stability. You will aslo notice less shock in the steering wheel when you hit bumps.