Death Wobble.....Help!!!!

Death Wobble......HELP!!!!

I have an 87 with the D30. I have been fighting the woble for sometime now and I cant seem to get it fixxed....Please help.

My mods: 4.5 RE springs, custom machined aluminum 3" coil spacers w/ stock isolators, RE adj. Track bar, Tomken Machine control arms (not adjustable) YJ steering conversion w/ ZJ pitman arm, Adjustable Ball joints, Ranch 9000X's.

ok heres the story I first started replacing the shocks and tires, While was do the work I noticed that the controll arms were not moving freely....so I replaced all the bushings and also replaced the trac bar bushings. Well since I had it torn down I took some more time and did the YJ steering conversion and then took it in for the upper adjustable ball jointsand have the tires balanced. Well it still never cured the problem. Now I am wits end as to whats wrong with this beast! Afew other things I replaced earlier on was both hubs. I later experienced the same problems with my 88 limited ( my cure for that one was trade it in for a Liberty....I know I know).

Please if anyone has an Idea what to do in my case would greatly be appreciated

Thanks

I have an 87 with the D30. I have been fighting the woble for sometime now and I cant seem to get it fixxed....Please help.

My mods: 4.5 RE springs, custom machined aluminum 3" coil spacers w/ stock isolators, RE adj. Track bar, Tomken Machine control arms (not adjustable) YJ steering conversion w/ ZJ pitman arm, Adjustable Ball joints, Ranch 9000X's.

ok heres the story I first started replacing the shocks and tires, While was do the work I noticed that the controll arms were not moving freely....so I replaced all the bushings and also replaced the trac bar bushings. Well since I had it torn down I took some more time and did the YJ steering conversion and then took it in for the upper adjustable ball jointsand have the tires balanced. Well it still never cured the problem. Now I am wits end as to whats wrong with this beast! Afew other things I replaced earlier on was both hubs. I later experienced the same problems with my 88 limited ( my cure for that one was trade it in for a Liberty....I know I know).

Please if anyone has an Idea what to do in my case would greatly be appreciated

Thanks

So, the front is at about 7.5"+ lift, correct? How long are your control arms? Are the uppers and lowers Tomken, or just the lowers with stock uppers? Have you had an alignment? If so, what was your caster? At 7.5" of lift, you really need to invest in some control arm drop brackets atleast, or some long arms. Your arms are at such a steep angle right now if you don't have drop brackets, especially being non adjustable and probably way too short for your setup. Your caster has really got to be off, which can easily cause DW problems. I would start with that before throwing a bunch of other money into it until you get your suspension setup correctly.

I have upper and lower arms.I had the whole front end aligned when I did the steering and the upper ball joints......PorchPuppy looked it over and said they control arms would work fine but hey......opionions could be mistaken. Thanks for the info I wil call Tomken on Monday and ask em if I should ad longer arms to my investment.

Thanks again

Re: Death Wobble......HELP!!!!

take out the 3" coil spacers: you don't need that much lift.

Re: Wobble......HELP!!!!

The coil spacers should not be adding to your DW....Check your track bar, control arms, wheel bearings, tie rod/drag link, steering box and your rims....if you are using any wheel spacers... remove them...9 times out of ten it has something to do with your track bar...also, unbalenced tires can contribute but not cause DW...In most cases it is a combination of a few of the before mentioned items with a lousy track bar....If your track bar uses a heim joint may want to consider converting to a static joint.

Check your steering conversion...that could be it...check all for tightness...

Side note: Get adjustable Upper and Lower control arms and I highly recommend long arms

Re: Death Wobble......HELP!!!!

Death wobble is caused either by slop in the suspension system or the fact that energy is being stored in some element of the suspension and then being released.

The first thing to do is to have someone get in the vehicle and rock the steering wheel back and forth. You need to get under the vehicle and while being carefull not to get pinched or mashed, put you hand on each and every joint. What you are feeling for is any give in the joint or bracket. Dont forget to check the steering box where it mounts to the frame.

Having said that, take nothing for granted. Just because it is new, check it anyway. My bet is actually on the tires/alignment. A slipped belt or other issue with a tire can cause problems on a lifted rig. Just for a quick test, rotate the tires. If you see any difference, then it is probably in the tires or at least they are contributing to the problem.

When fighting a dog problem like this, you get to the point where you simply go item by item and cross them off the list.

Lots of luck.

Re: Wobble......HELP!!!!

DorkAlert said:

The coil spacers should not be adding to your DW...

Click to expand...

Not quite - how long are the Control Arms? If they're too short the axle will rotate back farther, and DW is a very likely result. The rest of the post along with Tom's advice is a great place to start troubleshooting

Re: Death Wobble......HELP!!!!

did u install a drop pitman arm?? if not then id try using longer control arms upper and lower (maybe adjustable)

Brad

Re: Death Wobble......HELP!!!!

A drop pitman arm will cause you more problems than it solves. Dropping the pittman arm on an XJ will cause bump steer and put extra pressure on the steering box mounting. This will lead to premature frame failure where the box attaches. Pittman arm angle will not cause DW's.

87_jpchrk --

We have a rule against posting the same question on more than one of our forums. It just confuses things because you get two strings of answers, and aside from that it's generally considered to be rude forum behavior.

For this time, since you may not have read the forum rules and guidelines, I have merged your two threads so that all responses are in one place. In the future, however, be advised that any moderator might delete one or both of duplicate threads with no warning.

Thanks

Just drive it through lower 2 at Tellico.
That seemed to fix my Death Wobble.

Thanks Eagle for not booting me! I am still fairly new at this, So your point is taken and learned.

As for my problem! I have pretty much done all of the above mentioned other than checking the length of my control arms. I suspect this might be a problem since I havent replaced those after I installed the coil spacers. After all the mods done I had it aligned and they did not say a thing about the Caster. I fear that the alignment might of been rip off since I had the adjustable Ball joints installed after I converted the steering.Does anyone know of a good tech in the mojave desert?

GoJeep has a good write-up on alignment on his personal web site. I don't have it bookmarked, but it is freequently referred to around here so a bit of a search should turn it up ... it might even be listed in his profile.

And JC Whitney sells a tool for checking caster and camber. If you have a level floor, you may be able to do the whole job yourself.

Personally, I believe that all death wobble ultimately begins with tire balance. Other factors may either allow the initial wobble to get out of control (death wobble), or dampen it (no death wobble), but something has to start the tires wobbling. Imbalance is the usual culprit.

Insufficient caster angle is one of the factors that apparently allows shimmy to escalate into death wobble, so you should certainly get that alignment checked. Some folks also think toe-in may contribute, and that's easy to check on any level surface with a tape measure.