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HELP!!!! Jeep not safe for family

O

onyx maximus

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Oregon
I have a 88 Jeep Cherokee

Mods.
5.5IN LIFT
4.56 gears
1999 front dana 30
rear dana 35 has a locker not sure what kind
rugged ridge sterring
drop pitman arm

The problem is the front end shakes really bad, it feels like a boat on water, everytime I hit a bump it fells like it will death wobble again. When I first got it it would death wobble all the time, ive replaced bushings, ball joints, wheel bearings, tie rod, trac bar, drag link, and it still shakes. Ive never seen the lower control arms it has on it, wasnt sure if the angle was right on them and the trac bar mount on the axel has recently cracked with all the abuse, getting that fixed soon, will have pics tomarrow of all this. This jeep is not safe for my family and i am about to give up, have had other jeeps with bigger tires and lift and never had such a hard time
 
the crack would do it, check allignment, make sure everything is tight, make sure no cracks at frame, just check it all. if your fam goes in it you cant check the same thing too many times. check parts that shouldnt even matter, safety is the important thing here, if you waste time, so be it, as long as you and the fam stay safe :thumbup:
 
alignment is good, I checked all bushing, tie rod ends, trac bar ends, when i have some one move the steering wheel back and forth the whole axel moves and shifts, something else i wasnt sure about is it has a trac bar drop bracket, wasnt sure if it is something the guy before me bought or if he jimmy ridged it, u will see it in pics tomarrow, and im going to get it off the ground again to see if anything is loose ill let u know tomarrow, thanks for the help so far.
 
if the whole axle is moving then it would appear as the trac bar is issue, you said there is a crack already, fix that, then check every bolt and end again to make sure everything is tight and good
 
If the axle is moving then its definitley track bar related. Either the mount or one of the ends has play. It should be pretty obvious where it is coming from. Is it a stock track bar? I blew threw 3 stock track bars in about 6 months on 5 inches of lift. And you want to check it when its on the ground, if its on the lift and you turn the wheels it wont be as obvious.
 
5.5" lift. Is that a short arm lift, long arm, short arm with drop brackets?
 
1990heepxj said:
if its short arm with no drop brackets that can possibly cause death wobble
Click to expand...
SPOBI. My 94 runs on 6" of lift, short arms, no drop bracket, and zero wobble in the front end.
 
I tried aligning mine over and over. Then I replaced the track bar and aligned it again. Then I put in a ZJ tie rod because I wanted to do that anyways and I aligned it again. Still no luck. Then I replaced the control arm bushings. The death wobble was gone.
 
ChiXJeff said:
SPOBI. My 94 runs on 6" of lift, short arms, no drop bracket, and zero wobble in the front end.
Click to expand...

He's not.

Put an RE 3.5" lift on my brother's '98 XJ with an additional stock isolator up front to level it out.

Front end would walk around everywhere. The only thing keeping the wobbling in check was the stock stabilizer.

Put on drop brackets and it's as smooth as can be.

A lot of people overlook control arm angles as contributing to wobble/wandering.
 
i had exact same problem at 5 in. of lift, i had replaced my stabilizer to stop the wobble and it almost totally covered it up, but i now run db,s and have no stabilizer and no wobble
 
Last edited:
You've both overlooked something else. Something was loose, or fractured. Height, by itself does NOT cause DW.
 
Nope.

Only thing we did was unbolt the control arms and put on the drop brackets.

All the bolts were tight, I remember this for a fact. Didn't touch the bushings either or use different control arms.

My friend went through the same thing with his '01. Lifted it 5.5" and fought deathwobble for months checking EVERYTHING.

Put on drop brackets and it went away immediately. Same deal, same arms and bushings.
 
Adjustable or non adjustable arms? If adjustable were they adjusted properly for good caster with and without DBs?

I need to put a lot more thought into whether just the control arm angle could cause it, but my bet is that without the DBs the caster was lousy and that can cause death wobble.
 
Adjustable uppers, fixed lowers.

Checked caster with an angle finder before the brackets. I don't remember what it was.

I do know that I had 3* of caster with my TNT setup and it worked fine with no wobble, and I know he had more than that.

Caster tends to show up as wandering and not wobble.
 
First thing is see is the spot where you wrote Rugged Ridge steering. I have had so many of those Tie Rod units get returned do to shaking and shimmy in the front. (I work at 4wheelparts) Your unit might possibly not have an issue but I have had a few returned and swapped for a Currie steering that fixed the issue.

My boss has R/E long arm that swapped his out for the Currie after almost having several accidents on the freeway.

Check your caster settings on the alignment. Look into the drop brackets too. The trac-bar drop bracket could possible be an issue if the trac-bar angle is not parralel to your draglink.
 
NOBODY likes the RR steering, as has been said, you want to replace it, but it wont cause the axle to shift... it may be causing the dw though.

if the axle is shifting, its control arms or tracbar. angles wont cause the axle to shift.

does it shift side to side?

put hands on your front tires, try rolling each front tire forward or back while it's parked. see if you can move the front axle forwards <---control arm bushings, or mounting. check for ovalized holes

its that easy, you have play SOMEWHERE, and its obviously causing the dw.

death wobble is like politics, 99% of us simply dont understand it completely, and only know what we've been told, and what we've experienced.
 
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