• Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

death wobbles...I need advise

M

murfs66

NAXJA Forum User
Location
So Cal
Heyt guys, Just bought the cherokee (88) a few weeks ago. Had a brand new RC 6.5" lift on it . The guy bolted it up, but never drove it. Well I drove it and super bad death wobbles. I have checked all the bolts and all the ball joints and adjsuted the track bar right and tightened it also .

Well I just got back fromm driving up the street about 45 and had major wobbles. I pulled the steering stabalizer off and it was shot. (stock).

Whats a good stabalizer and would this be the culprit for the death wobbles?



Another quick question..... I have a 242 T-case. Is this a full time ? I see the front driveshaft turning when I drive it. Is it supposed to do this?

Could it be the wobble issue. My T-case shift knob has a 2WD labeled on it.
 
I'm not the one to answer death wobble questions, but your 242 has 2wd, part time for in the dirt, full time for slippery surfaces (icy roads) as well as low range and nuetral. I have one in my '00 Limited and won't give it up. Some guys don't like them, but for my DD in snow country I think it's perfect.

Did you notice any lock-out hubs (or auto-locking hubs for that matter) on the front axle? No? Your Jeep didn't come with them and without them the front shaft will always turn, even on a model with the center axle disconnect. If you are in 2wd there's no power being sent to the front end, but as long as your rolling the shaft will turn.

By the way, if you can see the shaft turning while you are driving you must have some badly rusted out florboards! :laugh3:
 
WELCOME to the site.

before you start throwing money at it, have someone sit in the jeep with it running and turn the steering wheel lock to lock, back and forth, over and over while you watch the front suspension. look for unsmooth jerky motions, especially in the tracbar bracket/joint areas. theres a metric shitload of stuff that can cause dw. it could very well be the castor gain from 6.5" of lift. but it could also be loose or worn components in the front end which is what will show here.

how are the tires? hate to say it, but search is your friend with dethwobble.
 
murfs66 said:
Heyt guys, Just bought the cherokee (88) a few weeks ago. Had a brand new RC 6.5" lift on it . The guy bolted it up, but never drove it. Well I drove it and super bad death wobbles. I have checked all the bolts and all the ball joints and adjsuted the track bar right and tightened it also .

Well I just got back from driving up the street about 45 and had major wobbles. I pulled the steering stabalizer off and it was shot. (stock).

Whats a good stabalizer and would this be the culprit for the death wobbles?



Another quick question..... I have a 242 T-case. Is this a full time ? I see the front driveshaft turning when I drive it. Is it supposed to do this?

Could it be the wobble issue. My T-case shift knob has a 2WD labeled on it.
Click to expand...

1988 Cherokee's never came with a 242 T-case. If it has one someone put it there after it was purchased from Jeep. Its a good t-case though and is not full time type.

Check tire balance, check tire condition, replace stabilizer, check relation of the track bar to drag link angle and make sure you are actually in 2WD when on pavement. If it is in 4WD, especially if it has lockers, it will drive like shat.
 
Get out the tape and start with it towed out about a 1/8". I also have the RC 6.5 lift and once i got it around that area i could fine tune it..
HTH
 
I tried the back anf ourth motion and it didnt look like anything was bad. My next move is to jack the axle up and check the ball joints. I have adjusted the allignment with the tape measure and its 1/8 out, so I believe that is ok also. Could it be the tires? The guy put these tires on it M/T and they were on his sons rock crawler. I've heard of some inner threads of the tires getting trashed creating the wobbles also. (my neighbor). I'm at loss with this one. I have read other threads and have tried just about everything. I'm replacing the stabalizer tomorrow. Hope that works
 
rancho makes a great stablizer. your trac bar bushing could be bad, or the mount. i had to re enforce my bracket on the axle end with square tubeing and it finally fixed it
 
all the lift on this is brand new . I looked at both ends on the track bar and they are also brand new and look good. I'm getting the rancho stabilizer tommorow
 
I chased DW for some time and could never find what was causing it.

Jacked up the front and everything seemed tight. It wasn't until i put a bar under the wheel and lifted up that the bad ball joint gave it's self away. No Matter how much i pulled and pushed on the wheel it never moved but that little bit of leverage and pop the ball joint moved a lot.

might want to check that out.
 
Thanks for the great advise . I'm looking to check and replace the ball joints by the weekend.

Thanks a bunch once again. This site is great.
 
murfs66 said:
I have adjusted the allignment with the tape measure and its 1/8 OUT, so I believe that is ok also.
Click to expand...

i believe my cherokee tires are pointed IN. I had a slight case of DW when I did a V8 zj tie rod swap and I had to keep on making the zj tie rod shorter and shorter till the deathwobble went away.

might help, only took me thirty minutes to correct mine:roll:
 
A bad stabilizer will not cause DW, nor will a good one save you from it.

XJs are highly sensitive to wheel balance.

Worn steering or suspension components can accentuate an out of balance wheel problem or also cause DW.

A million threads on this if you search

Also, someone indicated that the 242 does not have a full time selection, it does.
It has 5 settings: 2 hi, 4-full time, 4-part time, N, 4 low
And contrary to a previous post it was indeed an option on the 88 XJ. (available 87-01)
 
Last edited:
Save the stabilizer until you find the issue. A few good bouts of DW will trash the new stabilizer real quick. DW can be real hard to track down, but its normally something simple ( or a combination of things ) once you find it.
 
I haven't seen anybody mention alignment. (edit... guess I didn't read all the posts well enough :( ) Any time you touch the lift height you absolutely need to either do an alignment, or if you are not comforatable doing it, take it somewhere.
Both caster and toe, when out of spec, can cause serious death wobble. Caster can be checked with an angle finder and adjusted easily with the adjustable control arms that should have come with that kit. Toe can be checked with a tape measure.
Do that first, then start looking at parts.
 
you said the tires came off of the sons crawler well i bet the tires either werent balanced correctly or not at all so thats the first thing i would check and also i havent seen anyone mention anything about the hub bearing on the front i know mine started to have death wobble but i didnt realize what it was until i tore the axle apart to change the shafts
 
I ordered a set of new upper and lower ball joints just in case. I also ordered a new stabilizer. The next thing I'm going to do is balance the tires. I noticed they do have weights, but I just want o make sure they are all good. as far as the caster/camber mentioned I have adjusted the control arms to spec( what RC suggests to length 16/15 center to center) is there any other way to adjust them I don't know about?
 
hoestly most people can not tell the difference between DW, tire/wheel vibes, drive line vibes and alignment related vibes

so this is my one size fits all vibe/wobble fix it check list...

raising the truck and putting bigger tires can make issues that are already there seem more serious... it also throws angles out of whack which makes things even worse

the first thing you need to do is this

1.) identify when the wobble is present

2.) identify when, if ever the wobble is gone (expamples, below 30mph, after braking)

3.) identify what action start the wobble (examples, hard turns, speeds of 45-55mph)

4.) try to swap out your tires for your full sized spare, do this one by one, chances are you will find a bad tire

5.) jack the front end up and check for anything loose (ball joints, bolts, etc)

6.) if you have not had your caster adjusted, DO IT YOUSELF AT HOME AND SAVE SOME MONEY
http://go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoAlignment.htm

7.) follow this walk thru to do a front end alignment yourself...
http://go.jeep-xj.info/HowtoAlignment.htm

8.) have your wheels balanced
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

E
Steering Redo.... Questions before I dive in.
2
Replies
28
Views
1K
RCP Phx
R
C
How bad was my toe?
2
Replies
21
Views
6K
Evan03
E
89Mock
Gauge Cluster Swap: Mechanical to electric speedometer
Replies
3
Views
3K
kastein
kastein
M
NP 231 input shaft
Replies
3
Views
2K
RCP Phx
R
Winterhawk
My D35 Lincoln Locker
Replies
13
Views
3K
Evan03
E
Back
Top