My XJ needs help!

Has anyone had what i call the death shake? I can go down the street or hit a little bump and the jeep goes into a shake and i mean bad, it also bangs alot too!! I just put new steering rods in, ball joints, and lower control arms. All the mount for the control arms look good, i see no rub marks from whats banging. It feels like the axle is trying to get away and i don't know what to do. Please Help!!!

Red XJ said:

Has anyone had what i call the death shake? I can go down the street or hit a little bump and the jeep goes into a shake and i mean bad, it also bangs alot too!! I just put new steering rods in, ball joints, and lower control arms. All the mount for the control arms look good, i see no rub marks from whats banging. It feels like the axle is trying to get away and i don't know what to do. Please Help!!!

Click to expand...

There is ALOT on this subject. First try and search *death wobble* then as you narrow down your questions for your jeep, you'll be able to ask more detailed how to fix.

hinkley

i would look at the track bar . do you have a lift on the thing ? does it have a track bar relocation bracket ?does it have an adjustable track bar?

but as stated above there are plenty of threads on this right now so look around you see an ongoing theme in most.

double check alignment, make sure everything is nice and tight and no play anywhere... check trackbar and steering dampner too

I have been rocking the same track bar and have had no problems for months so i didn't belive that was my issue. That is my next weekends project, i was pushing off thinking the ball joint and the caster was my problem.

how about a description of your suspension mods

Here is what I have learned since installing my lift this fall:

You probably have bump-steer induced death wobble
Your front steering is going nuts because the stabilization is poor. Did you piece together a kit with control arms from different suppliers?

The death wobble you're experiencing is from the steering being at too low an angle. (from the side, your axle is rotated too far forward, by having long uppers or too short lowers). Tell us your upper and lowers length, and the mounting used (drop brackets?). A steering stablizer won't really help if your steering knuckles are close to straight up and down, because the momentum of your jeep is a destabilizing force greater than a little shock at higher speeds if the caster is destabilizing.
-When I first put in my lift, I was close to 0 degrees, and so I had the kind of shake you're talking about. First time it happened it took me by surprise.

The bump steer is caused by the trackbar and steering thingy (drag link) from not being parallel and not being of the same length. When the suspension cycles, the two take different arcs, and so the wheels turn. Fix what you can, and realize that every time your front end hits a good bump, the steering changes. Either the wheel in your hands will move left and right, or your front wheels will. To see how bad the bump steer is, just jump up and down on your front bumper (or to that effect), and watch the steering wheel rotate. If you were driving and hit the same bump, and were to grip the steering wheel tightly, the wheels would turn commensurate to how much you saw the steering wheel turn.

A lift supplier recommended that I tell the alignment shop to set the toe in at the max factory spec, but its a crutch so you should check out this other stuff first.

I'd only recommend a new steering stabilizer if your problem was small and that there was no other way to fix it cheaply. If the shake is like driving over railroad ties with no suspension, then you need to change some geometry to get stability back.

EDIT: yes, tell us your suspension situation, since this is modified tech

I have went thru this hole thing with mine. I finally got some ajustable
lower control arms and put about 6 degrees on the castor. I also found out
that the tire condition is very critical. If you have any scalops or flat spots,
that will add to the problem. I had done just about everything that I could
think of and it still acted like it wanted to start, but wouldn't. I put on a
new set of BFG a/t's and it stopped. I have about 6K miles on the tires now
and not a problem. I think if you get some angle on the castor, set the
toe in, make sure everything is tight(which I think you have), and try some
good tires, you just might beat the shakes.
Good luck
Big O

I went through this as well. It could be number of things such as the u joints, steering stabalizer, balancing tires, or allighnment for the entire thing. take a look at those. That is what was wrong with mine. If you have enough lift without any sye of t case drop it could be the driveshaft so get an sye kit on it soon. check the others first. i only have a 3" inch lift on mine and the death wobble was killin me...


Casey

Red XJ said:

Has anyone had what i call the death shake? I can go down the street or hit a little bump and the jeep goes into a shake and i mean bad, it also bangs alot too!! I just put new steering rods in, ball joints, and lower control arms. All the mount for the control arms look good, i see no rub marks from whats banging. It feels like the axle is trying to get away and i don't know what to do. Please Help!!!

Click to expand...

Whether or not you have lifted your Jeep, and by how much has a huge imipact on this type of problem. So does your tire size, wheel backspacing, spring rate, sway bar, stabilizer and the condition of all your steering and suspension parts and joints.

Without offering some of this information, most of the preceeding info is pretty worthless, or ambiguous by necessity. Even with some more detail, advice related to driveshaft u-joints and SYE's is out in left field.

Help us help you.

Spill the beans.

Tell us about your Jeep.

Fork over some details.

I have a 86 XJ with 5 inches of lift from a 3 inch coil +2 inch spacer. The rear has a 3 inch add a leaf with a 2 inch block. Had the 3 inch for about two years, with stock everthing. Now put in 4.88 gears and the 5 inches about 6 months ago, and had no problems. I went wheelin one day got a tiny bend in my steering rod and had to forcefully pull a friend out of the mud. On the way home the shakes came. Since i had the bent steering rod i made a homemade high steer kit that works pretty nice. That did not fix the problem, niether did the new ball joints, or the lower control arms i made today.

mine did the thing slowing down on the hwy, found out that the track bar was wiped changed it and have never had it again ... almost shook the wheel out of hands when it starts to shake..

Red XJ said:

I have a 86 XJ with 5 inches of lift from a 3 inch coil +2 inch spacer. The rear has a 3 inch add a leaf with a 2 inch block. Had the 3 inch for about two years, with stock everthing. Now put in 4.88 gears and the 5 inches about 6 months ago, and had no problems. I went wheelin one day got a tiny bend in my steering rod and had to forcefully pull a friend out of the mud. On the way home the shakes came. Since i had the bent steering rod i made a homemade high steer kit that works pretty nice. That did not fix the problem, niether did the new ball joints, or the lower control arms i made today.

Click to expand...

5" lift on a stock track bar is suspect. That would be a good place to look for loose joints. The length of your homemade control arms might be part of the problem too. What is your castor set at? Some more info would help (see previous post). What size tire? 31's?

Sounds like the mods so far and parts wearing out(high mileage '88) have set you up for DW. Messing up the steering and packing the tires with mud (balance) probably caused the first event. Then you changed out the lower control arm which may have messed up your castor, making things worse.

Like Gil stated, check for loose parts and alignment specs.

Check the draglink and tierod the toein/out is probably wrong. you need an Adj.track bar also with that much lift. check here http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=40211&page=2

I had no caster before i put on the new lower control arms and it was that way for months before the shake came. So i add 1 inch to the lower control arms. i hope today i will be taking it to get aligned. I shall also rotate the tires and check the balance of them.

Red XJ said:

I had no caster before i put on the new lower control arms and it was that way for months before the shake came. So i add 1 inch to the lower control arms. i hope today i will be taking it to get aligned. I shall also rotate the tires and check the balance of them.

Click to expand...

???? So you haven't changed the arms in the last month, and the shakes are more recent, but you're gonna go ahead and add more caster anyway?

No! I had the stock arms for months and had no shake. Then the shake came around so i put the new ones on just the other day.

Can you feel any oscillation in the steering wheel while moving slowly in a straight line??? If so you might have a bent wheel or a bruised tire.

I had problems when i lifted my xj..one of my front tires was badly out of round...had it trued...no probs since.