Calling All IC Tech Gurus

[Brad M.]

I need advice on a wobble. Yes another dreaded wobble thread. But this is NOT a death wobble, it's smaller, more isolated, and constant. I've searched quite a bit on this and haven't found anything (yet) that's similar to mine so I'm throwing this out there and will continue to search. It definitely seems to be in the front end. Here's the deal: '99 D30 HP 4:56's ARB locker stock shafts - What I need is simply more ideas of what to check. The wobble is a true wobble, not a shimmy that comes and goes. It is present at all speeds and is wheel speed related. After checking some things I'm becoming more convinced something might be bent :( Here's what I've checked: TRE's & ball joints; no noticeable excessive play visually, track bar; again no excessive movement, I rotated & balanced the tires (wobble would follow a bent wheel right? But this changed nothing as far as location of the wobble), replaced Skyjacker LCA heims with the beefy Teraflex joints (this gave me a great excuse to talk my wife into that upgrade!), and had it aligned. Still on my list is inspection of the axle and shafts as well as the unit bearing, when time permits. I've felt it for awhile and put it off since it wasn't very bad, but it's gotten more noticeable since Moab. Any other ideas or suggestions? TIA,

Brad

[Geepfreak]

I might suspect unit-bearings..

[DrMoab]

I would suspect bad wheel or out of balance tire before anything. TREs, Ball joints or other steering components will not cause this kind of wobble.

[slider]

separated tire. my jeep did the same thing and even rotating the tires didn't help. raise the vehicle and spin the tires and watch the tread. see if it wobbles.

[Geepfreak]

I rotated & balanced the tires (wobble would follow a bent wheel right?
Brad

I would suspect bad wheel or out of balance tire before anything. TREs, Ball joints or other steering components will not cause this kind of wobble.

:looser:

:D

[DrMoab]

:looser:

:D
I saw that but it doesn't mean much. Well the rotated part would but if the tire was seperated it wouldn't matter. Might come out smooth but when the tire is on the ground it would wobble.

I am still betting against TREs, Ball joints and track bars though. Most likely something spinning. Could be a hub like you said, tires, wheels or maybe a bent axleshaft??

[Vince]

Brad, a friend of mine over here in the UK had a similar problem. He found that a tire shop greatly overtorqued a wheel nut on his steel wheels which distorted the mounting surface. The wheel was an AR-767 copy and I think that the problem had something to do with the brake drum but I'm not certain.

[Brad M.]

Thanks for the input so far... I've got a couple spare unit bearings that I think I'll swap in just for kicks this weekend if I have time and see what that does. Tires are brand new MTR's, bought in July. Did the tire rotation to see if maybe a bent wheel but it changed nothing. Although they mentioned they have some kind of a machine that they can use to further check that I opted to keep exploring on my own for now. Vince, that's a great heads up, I'll check into that as well. Thanks again ya'll!

[xj4moab]

Try swapping the front two tires only from side to side. that helped me a lot on my TJ

Thanks for the input so far... I've got a couple spare unit bearings that I think I'll swap in just for kicks this weekend if I have time and see what that does. Tires are brand new MTR's, bought in July. Did the tire rotation to see if maybe a bent wheel but it changed nothing. Although they mentioned they have some kind of a machine that they can use to further check that I opted to keep exploring on my own for now. Vince, that's a great heads up, I'll check into that as well. Thanks again ya'll!

[Geepfreak]

Any luck?

[Clint]

Brad, I just had a funny thing happen. All of a sudden got DW at 40-50mph. Anything after that it would go away. I checked my track bar bracket and it looked tight. But I had somone turn the wheel and the bracket would move away from the frame. have them turn the other way and it would suck back in and look normal. The vehicle puts too make weigh on it to be able to move it by hand. Finally the bottom two bolts broke on me while going 75mph down a bumpy highway...not fun!

[DaveW]

Brad, I just had a funny thing happen. All of a sudden got DW at 40-50mph. Anything after that it would go away. I checked my track bar bracket and it looked tight. But I had somone turn the wheel and the bracket would move away from the frame. have them turn the other way and it would suck back in and look normal. The vehicle puts too make weigh on it to be able to move it by hand. Finally the bottom two bolts broke on me while going 75mph down a bumpy highway...not fun!

Ride'm cowboy......

I hope the other bolts did not tear out of the frame. You don;t want to have to drive your sisters Xj this weekend.

[Clint]

Ride'm cowboy......

I hope the other bolts did not tear out of the frame. You don;t want to have to drive your sisters Xj this weekend.

No they are OK. Had to drive home the 30 miles from Five mile pass at 25mph though. .. Took it all apart today..everything is ok except for some broken bolts. Went and got new hardware..just need to replace them tomorrow and I'm good to go.

[Brad M.]

Any luck?

I actually haven't had time to get to it yet. LOST MY WHEEL LOCK KEY! Stupid thing anyway. Hoping to have time tomorrow or thurs after work. I did however pull the diff covers last night and changed out my fluid finally and found a different problem. My ARB in the front D30 has a couple bolts that backed out of the cylinder cap on the locker itself. (This ARB is 7 yrs old, and I believe they have since changed the design becasue of this very problem.) One of them sheared off, found the bolt head in the bottom of the diff housing. Checked the R&P and it doesn't appear to have fubar'd them. In fact there were no signs it even got in the teeth. Dodged a major bullet there. The other I should be able to just tighten back down. So now I'm trying to decide if I should just leave the broken bolt shaft as is, pull the others and put some loc-tite on them and re-tighten, OR go through the headache of pulling the unit and taking it to a machine shop to see if they could drill it out. It's so small though that I don't know if they'd have any luck. Any other ideas?

[Clint]

I actually haven't had time to get to it yet. LOST MY WHEEL LOCK KEY! Stupid thing anyway. Hoping to have time tomorrow or thurs after work. I did however pull the diff covers last night and changed out my fluid finally and found a different problem. My ARB in the front D30 has a couple bolts that backed out of the cylinder cap on the locker itself. (This ARB is 7 yrs old, and I believe they have since changed the design becasue of this very problem.) One of them sheared off, found the bolt head in the bottom of the diff housing. Checked the R&P and it doesn't appear to have fubar'd them. In fact there were no signs it even got in the teeth. Dodged a major bullet there. The other I should be able to just tighten back down. So now I'm trying to decide if I should just leave the broken bolt shaft as is, pull the others and put some loc-tite on them and re-tighten, OR go through the headache of pulling the unit and taking it to a machine shop to see if they could drill it out. It's so small though that I don't know if they'd have any luck. Any other ideas?

Ask Ryan about this.. he JUST fixed this like a month ago. Exact same thing happened to him.

[Brad M.]

Ask Ryan about this.. he JUST fixed this like a month ago. Exact same thing happened to him.

Good to know, thanks dude! :kissyou:

BTW, sounds you had quite an adventure...