wobblin'

[Codeman]

I put on a 3 inch and 31's not too long ago, and haven't had too many problems, until now. slowly the wobble has come, and only at 55 mph. it was nothing really, untill yesterday, I was shaken like there was no tomorow.
Any idea's?

Codeman- (94 xj) (1" tcase drop)

[logdog]

Do a search on death wobble, its been covered A LOT!! ;)

[sidriptide]

if its fairly new and comes on regularly at a common speed i would really consider tire balance as a possible cause.. maybe lost a weight?

mike

[live24wheel]

at 2.5 inches of lift I had a slight wobble, hardly noticable (sp). I am now at 4.5 inches and it wobbled like mad. I got an adjustable track-bar and that cured alot of it, Also my tires are out of balance as well because my shakin comes at only about 55 mph. So definently check for out of balance tires...

[fire325]

I've been havin' this same problem for about 6 months. What's weird is...my right front tire is wearing more than my left. I also have the normal wear on the outside edges. I've replaced Rusty's trac bar tie rod end. Didn't help.Checked my steering shock. It's OK. I've had my front tires balanced 6 times to make sure. They are OK. I have fairly new hubs/bearing units on Lt and Rt side front. Along with new axle joints. I haven't had time to get an alignment :twak: . But, if that's not it, i'll replace all bushings,tie rod ends,maybe even newer axle joints, lower adjustable control arms,new tires or a newer steering shock. It's about to drive me to :tears: . There are so many things it could be, kinda amazes me, because of the fairly simple looking frontend :dunno: . I'll get it figured out after about $500.00 :flamemad: !

[XJ_Matt]

Anyone running the JKS adj track bar for 4+" of lift? It has a rebuildible Johnny Joint on it. I am trying to decide on whether to get the RE1660 or the JKS-OGS125.

Matt

[ChuckD]

Anyone rdbning the jks adj track bar for 4+" of lift? It has a rebuilible Johnny Joint on it. I am trying to decide on whether to get the RE1660 or the JKS-OGS125.

Matt


If you get the JKS, get the one with the modified frame mount.

[Lawn Cher']

I haven't had time to get an alignment :twak: .

Bingo!

[dbxj]

If you get the JKS, get the one with the modified frame mount.

What's the modified frame mount? I don't think they offered that when I bought mine (4"+ of lift).

[y2kxj]

I have death wobble. 3.5 inch lift. Rusty's heavy duty adj. trackbar and mount. It was alligned but then I switched from the drop bracket to the adj. track bar so I prolly need to go have my toe checked. I had 1/8" castor shims in but have since taken them out since I think they made things worse. I have a new skyjacker stabilizer coming tomarrow but my stock one felt pretty good when I removed it today. I took the day off and went through checking and tightening everything I could find. My trackbar is tight and the axle centered perfectly (this prolly changed my toe so again I think it may be an allignment issue). I even upgraded the bolt on the axle side of the trac bar to a 7/16" to fit tighter. Still just about throws me out of the jeep at 55-60 mph over a particular dip in the road. WTF? My wheel bearings are tight and so are my ball joints. I am now at a loss. The stabilizer may help but I need to know what's up. My tires are very new and I never had a problem with them before the lift. I checked my LCA's for tight and checked to make sure my shocks were good and also that they were tight. Anybody see something I'm missing? Would a bad allignment or an unbalanced tire cause a DW only when hitting a bump or dip? It rides fine everywhere else. It wobbles so bad you have to stop (which takes forever since there's barely any braking power during the wobble) or you will lose control. ANY HELP??? PLEASE????

[99XJ]

I have 99 with 5" lift and 32's, I had death wobble and replace the LCA's and it fixed it, they are only 5/8" longer than the stock one's, but I have been driving it for 6 months and hit some hard bumps without any death wobble. Hope that helps. Good luck.

[logdog]

I have death wobble. 3.5 inch lift. Rusty's heavy duty adj. trackbar and mount. It was alligned but then I switched from the drop bracket to the adj. track bar so I prolly need to go have my toe checked. I had 1/8" castor shims in but have since taken them out since I think they made things worse. I have a new skyjacker stabilizer coming tomarrow but my stock one felt pretty good when I removed it today. I took the day off and went through checking and tightening everything I could find. My trackbar is tight and the axle centered perfectly (this prolly changed my toe so again I think it may be an allignment issue). I even upgraded the bolt on the axle side of the trac bar to a 7/16" to fit tighter. Still just about throws me out of the jeep at 55-60 mph over a particular dip in the road. WTF? My wheel bearings are tight and so are my ball joints. I am now at a loss. The stabilizer may help but I need to know what's up. My tires are very new and I never had a problem with them before the lift. I checked my LCA's for tight and checked to make sure my shocks were good and also that they were tight. Anybody see something I'm missing? Would a bad allignment or an unbalanced tire cause a DW only when hitting a bump or dip? It rides fine everywhere else. It wobbles so bad you have to stop (which takes forever since there's barely any braking power during the wobble) or you will lose control. ANY HELP??? PLEASE????
You dont mention what size tire you run, but if you have a 31" or bigger a stronger steering stabilizer will help. You may also try a drop pitman arm, mabey a 3" TJ pitman arm? While it may help the DW, it may cause more bumpsteer if your trac-bar and drag link are not parralell.

[younggun96]

just went through all the same B.S with my 3" lift and 31's!! replaced the steering stabilizer, balanced the tires(AGAIN!!), checked all my bolts, replaced the trac bar, replaced my shock bushings up front, and finally an alignment. Finally no more D,W.!!!

My local alignment guy is awesome, I asked him w.t.f. cause so much trouble with these things??? his reply " what you call d.w. an alignment man refers to as caster shake" these things seem to have a very tempermental front end under them that is multiplied when you start lifting and stiffening things up. He was able to set my caster where it needed to be and fix my shake syndrom but he warned me that if you off road a bunch make sure you make a regular habit of checking all the bolts up front regularly. He sees these things in his shop all the time after something works it's way loose and changes the caster. Just my 2 cents worth!

[y2kxj]

cool. Man that dw is frustrating! I haven't yet got my 2nd allignment since the lift (I will This week) but my dw was ended by the skyjacker stabilizer. I took off the stock one and it hardly had any resistance. The skyjacker was WAY stiff. It made my rig drive like a caddy. I only have 235/75/15 tires on now so that wasn't an issue I don't think. I still think my toe is off since putting on the Rusty's adj. trackbar and mount. It seemed almost like the new trac bar and mount had so little play and were so stiff that that was what started everything? OH well $45 for the stabilizer and I slayed my DW dragon. I feel safe behind the wheel again.
Thanks.

[Codeman]

weird to see this post again....

I finaly got ballanced, but that did nothing, got an allignment, nothing, replaced the ss, and voila! I needed the allignment and balancing really bad too, but the ss did the trickfor me!
Codeman

[Twisted Copper]

The stock stabilizer is ineffective when larger tires are put on the XJ - period. When the Jeep is lifted it is extended more than normal too, which only makes matters worse.

I have my Caster, Camber, and Toe all in spec, the trackbar is relocated a little more than .5" to the right in the stock frame mount (axle centered), and I'm wobblin' a bit. I have an OME stabilizer on the way and I'm pretty confident it will do the job for me as well. (crossing fingers)

I will eventually get an adj. trackbar, but I just dumped a bunch of $$$ in the Jeep and I'm going to wait 'till the next "mod weekend" and do a bunch all at once.

[y2kxj]

let us know how it works.

[Y2K-XJ]

WOW Y2KXJ How original!LOL But do you have the license plate also? LOL
anyway this one does sound like Track bar probs...

[Twisted Copper]

Are you guys twins?

[Ramsey]

its so cute, yall are like twinkies

[y2kxj]

dammit. I didn't know he was that. I was y2kxj on offroad's board and just used it here too. After all it is a year 2000 xj. They made more than one. dammit my face is red. haha. oh well too late to change now. great minds think alike?

[lapisxj]

I have had the same problems with my 96 xj, 4.5" lift, had everything alligned and ballanced. Later after the install we put a HD track bar bracket and the bushing end on to get rid of the TRE.

We eventually got the DW suppressed with a rancho stabilizer but that only seems to mask the underlying problem. The DW is comming back after about 6 months so I am now looking to the root of the problem and trying to fix that.

From what I have read having the trackbar angle and draglink angle not parallel will cause some front end issues. When reading all these posts to the same problem of DW, the responses are so varied that the overall problem is that "any play in the front end can cause DW". I have read responses that have pinpointed the pitman arm, tire balancing, front end allignment, loose bolts, worn TRE's, worn CA bushings, worn track bar mounts, just about anything related to play in the front end.

My plan:
I just ordered a dropped pitman arm that is supposed to get the 2 angles back in check. If I still have the DW after the pitman arm then I am going to replace any steering component that has any questionable play in it. If this doesn't cure it, I don't know what I am going to do. We are really getting very frustrated with this and we no longer take the XJ on trips because of this issue. It sucks when one little problem like this makes the vehicle such a P.I.T.A. that it is no longer fun to drive, especially when it is a daily driver.

I guess worse case is to buy a steering stabilizer every 6 months at the tune of $50 each.

[XJDiesel]

I had the same problem. I bought an 89 XJ with a dead 4 cylinder because I wanted to install a Mercedes 300 turbo SD and use it as a daily driver and desert driving but I am not into rocks. Because of the oil pump location, I had to leave the engine with the front sump pan so I put in a 3” lift kit and a 5” drop pitman arm which I needed to drop another 1 ¾ “ to clear the pan. I bought an adjustable track rod and bracket from Rusty’s. I have done diesel conversions to other vehicles but was a new comer to jeeps. The odometer said 140K and all the ends on the tie rod and drag link looked new. I though I had covered all bases but a 35mph I got a big and wild surprise, the derided death wobble bad enough you could hear the tires chirping on the pavement. Because of the pan place I wasn’t able to use the stock steering stabilizer so another call to Rusty’s and I had a stabilizer that bolted to the front housing and the tie rod. It didn’t help. I balanced and the tires. Didn’t help. Another call to Rusty’s and I had new control bushing for the axle and new lower control arms. Help some, 45mph. A trip to a good front-end shop to confirm I needed a caster adjustment but the were unable to do it because of the non-adjustable upper control arms. They also suggested I needed to lengthen my track arm bracket to put it on the same plane as my custom extreme dropped pitman arm and also suggested to raise the jeep higher because the drag link and the tie rod may be to straight with each other, they were about 6 degrees to each other. You guessed it, another call and new upper adjustable control arms and springs for a 6” lift, probably could have gotten away with a 4 ½ “. I don’t know if I needed both the changes but all was good to 70mph and by going to the 6” lift I was able to install a stabilizer in the stock mounts. The aftermarket stabilizer in still on the jeep only because of being wobbled shocked. With a new drive shaft, 32” tires, 4.10 gears, and the stock AX5 trans, I cruse at 75 and get 21mpg. I agree with the others, stabilizers only mask problems and every time I am under the jeep I check for loose bolts, and joint ends, and motor mounts. Don’t forget to check the rear suspension, mainly u-bolts.