Cant Get rid of DW

I had my cherokee in the shop and had a new track bar bracket for the stock front axle made to adapt for a Re adjustable track bar and had the toe and alignment all set correctly. We are in the middle of building a 44 for up front, the only thing holding me back is money. The reason I had it taken in was horrible death wobble up front. It was bad. It seems it is coming from the right front tire. I had them titen all of the front linkege tight. I drove it around for a while and it felt fine and went over to my buds, on the way home it kicked back up right as I hit 3rd gear, Scared the shit outa me and I thought it was fixed, the only two things I can think of are Track bar or adjustable control arm problems. The shop I took it to said it all looked great up front, So now I am lost without a vehicle.

I'm just trying to get it rolling down the pave ment.

Someone want to explain solutions of DW to me, I will try evarything to fix it.


:wstupid:

A bad or unbalanced tire or a bent wheel can cause DW too.

RR3

I had the tires all mounted and balanced when I bought them, The rims are brand new too with no road time

How much lift? Alignment specs?

balljoints? unit bearings? control arm bushings? sloppy heims?

all bearing, balljoints are good, and I just replaced bushings. All my heims are brand new, I only have had it out 1 or 2 times and had to bring it back due to the wobble.


I just had it aligned when I took it in for the track bar bracket

What kind of rims are you running and are they bent? I just went through this. I had loose lower control arms, slop in the tre rod ends, and a bent rim from blowing out a tire. So I replaced and bolted everything down. Still had the DW's. So I went back to the stock rims. Problem solved. Bent rim was the deal. I would have them balanced again. A good shop should be able to tell you if there bent or not. Juice

and had the toe and alignment all set correctly.

Click to expand...

How do you know this...did you personally check?..most shops do a "close enough" toe in setting...you need to check it yourself with a tape measure....if its more than 1/8" of toe in you are in DW territory.

My buddy was running my old(est) lift with PC arms and a Rusty's tracbar.He was having some DW problems.Now with my old lift(newer) and a brand new RE "Extreme duty trackbar",no DW!For me its always been the trackbar,I had it on my 2000 with only 3k miles until I install the XD trackbar!

I checke the toe and alignment and they were fine, The rims are brand new, not even gone off road, I had the tires balanced when mounted and they did a damn good job, I bought from NTWonline.com Everything is brand new, I have maybe a mile on the rims and tires. The track bar is a RE adjustable, brand new, I'm thinking it could be a control arm problem, Im going to disconnect the lca's and uca's tonight and check and titen them all up the ook fine thow, they are adjustable, so maybe I dont have them tuned to exact lengths, Thought I did though. Everything is tight and brand mnew so I am sorta lost.

Any other suggestions.

Could it be track bar anle? Its not bad at all

Considering you still havent said anything about your year/lift/tires/suspension???????????????????????????????????

... or alignment specs

or wheel offset,

or air pressure,

or tire size,

or lift height,

or wheel mfg,

or ...

heavy sigh

You keep saying the tire balance is fine, too, but how do you know?

Death wobble starts out as wobble. It doesn't materialize out of thin air, something has to start at least one tire wobbling. If the shimmy/wobble/shake can be confined to one tire, most people just say they have a shimmy. Death wobble is what occurs when shimmy/shake/wobble in one front tire is transmitted through the steering/suspension to the other side, which then begins to wobble in a kind of harmonic reinforcement. The mutual feedback escalates a simple shimmy into a death wobble.

Everyone here seems to have their own pet theory of what "cures" death wobble. One guy says "track bar!" Someone else says "caster angle!" Another person hollars "ball joints!"

Me, I scream "TIRE BALANCE!"

It would help a lot to know the speed at which this happens. "When I hit 3rd gear" could be anywhere from 25 MPH to 75 MPH depending on how you drive. For reasons I still cannot explain, tires that are poorly balanced virtually always start to shimmy at about 50 to 55 MPH. So if the onset of your DW is in that magic 50 to 55 MPH range, I would look first at tire balance. Try rotating front to back, or borrow a set of tires for a day from another Jeep owner who doesn't have any wheel shimmy at those speeds.

And please post your alignment data. As already noted, "I just had it aligned" doesn't mean it was aligned correctly, especially if you have a lift.

Dont you guys think its about time to post a DW sticky somewhere on this site......aplace where you can post what worked for me.....and everyone can go there to look up info on what to try...we go through this about 5 times a week.

I agree

a check list of sorts:

before you post have you verified :

1) tire balance

(watch em do it if you can...most shops dont do it right)

2) get out your lug wrench and try to tighen all the lug nuts.

( I cant tell you haow many times Ive seen a jeep come out of the alignment shop with the lugnuts only finger tight)

3) jacked up front tires off of ground and checked for loose parts

(everythig always feels good with weight on it!)


4) removed frame end of trackbar and checked joint

(If its a stock trackbar and you can move it with your fingers..its bad)

5) checked ball joints for play

( jack up tires about 1/4" off of driveway place block of wood under a prybar placed under front tire and pry up a little bit while watching the ball joints if any movement @ the joint its bad)

6) checked alignment toe in set @ 0*, with jeep on ground and wheels straight ahead

( a tape measure placed in the tread from one tire to teh other first in the back of the tires and then in the front..make sure it the same spot on the tread pattern on both sides.....It should be a max 1/8" less in the front than in the back)


7) check for loose or damaged shocks

(the pin on the top of the shock can become loose with hard off road use the rubber bushings can fail....with weight off the front tires if you can rotate the shock at all it's too loose)

8) check all steering joints without weight on the front.

(should feel firm no play anywhere if there is any play try to tighten it if still play replace it)

9) with front in the air check for bad hub bearings

( grab the tire on top and bottom and try to wiggle the tire up and down,, if there is play, movement up and down, the hub bearing is bad, or wheel nut is loose)

If you have checked all these items and have verified that all is good, and replaced whats bad. then post to ask a question. I dont think that there is not one person here on this site who can do these simple tests....and usually the problem will be very evident if you do a few simple tests.

what about the steering stabalizer? Has that been replaced

add to xjnation's list a check on the steering box. Rock the steering wheel side to side and make sure you see a coresponding movement at the pitman arm. 5° or more of steering movement without moving the pitman arm is probably too much.

I will transfer this info we gather here to a page I will create on my website a direct link, that you guys can link to when the question arises...I will put in pics of each item noted and the process for checking...anyone else have any input.

when checking the steering box pitman arm also check the box to frame attachment for play...under hard use the bolts try to work their way through the attachment point.

xjnation said:

Dont you guys think its about time to post a DW sticky somewhere on this site......aplace where you can post what worked for me.....and everyone can go there to look up info on what to try...we go through this about 5 times a week.

Click to expand...

Isn't there a DW article in the members tech section?

One of the problems, of course, is that everyone has their own pet theory of how to "cure" death wobble, even if they don't even have true DW.