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Am I getting ripped off with DW?

4

4ESTJP

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Durham, AR
I finally broke down after two weeks, of adjusting my uca and lca's to try and cure the DW, and took my 97 cherokee in to my local 4x store/shop. They are charging $70 bucks an hour to fix it. So far they replaced all four ball joints and the uca bushings on the axle and it still is wobbling. Now they think my backspacing on the wheels are stressing the wheel bearings. They took stock wheels off an Unlimited and drove it around without the DW. They checked my wheels and balanced them, put them back on with the DW.

4.5" lift with adjustable UCA, LCA, and Track bar. I only have 31" BFG on some American Eagle Rims. I think they said the backspacing was 3.75". My bill is over $600

Pictures http://www.forestfalls.com/blankpage.html before I added the UCA, LCA and jks swaybar disconnects. By the time I was done the coils were straight.

???
 
Drop Brackets, Drop Brackets, Drop Brackets. I was in the smae predicament about a year ago $500 later I decided to get drop brackets and cured it right up!
 
That may be one of your problems, because if you're only using rim weights on the inside of the wheel (without any weights on the outer rim or any tape/stick-in weights on the inside of the wheel behind the spokes), then you're only balancing half the tire/wheel combo. I brought this up because you said the DW went away when they put on different tires/wheels. Might be something to check into.
 
Are those BFG's old?

See if someone else has a set of 31's you can try. I've seen lots of BFG out of round problems.

7" rims right?

hinkley
 
Just for the hell of it (if you have the Jeep) try swapping tires front for rear... If it's out of round, bent rim, or balance in theory the rears won't be exactly the same as the fronts.

Got specs from an alignment? What's yoru castor set at?
 
That may be one of your problems, because if you're only using rim weights on the inside of the wheel (without any weights on the outer rim or any tape/stick-in weights on the inside of the wheel behind the spokes), then you're only balancing half the tire/wheel combo. I brought this up because you said the DW went away when they put on different tires/wheels. Might be something to check into.
Click to expand...

That shouldn't matter assuming the balancing machine was setup correctly. The balancing machine that we use has different modes so that if you have a rim without an outer lip you can out all the weights on the inside. If the weights are put on right and you switch the mode to something else, everything is still balanced.

Dean
 
Unfortunatly Jeep cherokees are not the only ones suffering from death wobble. You will find 94 and later Dodge trucks with the same issues. They run the same set up, just at a larger scale. All the posts I have read regarding this it seems the cure is really unkown for sure . A lot of guys seem to have luck installing a Lukes link, which I think is a new track rod setup.
DC is to blame for poor design.
 
DDCxj said:
That shouldn't matter assuming the balancing machine was setup correctly. The balancing machine that we use has different modes so that if you have a rim without an outer lip you can out all the weights on the inside. If the weights are put on right and you switch the mode to something else, everything is still balanced.

Dean
Click to expand...

My machine does that too, but it still doesn't matter because you're only balancing 50% of the wheel. Take a look at VWs and Porsche wheels without an outer lip and how they're balanced from the factory, weights on both inner edges of the wheel. Balancing is a retarded art, you can balance a tire and wheel combo, take it off the machine, bounce it on the ground, put it back on the machine, and it'll call for something else. If there's anything on the hub surface where the wheel mounts, like any rust or dirt build-up, that can throw a tire out too (ever try the business card trick where you stick a business card between the wheel and balancer mounting surface?).

If you're running tires bigger than 235s, then you should have the wheels balanced on both sides of the wheel, I don't care what the machine says.
 
Mark Hinkley said:
See if someone else has a set of 31's you can try. I've seen lots of BFG out of round problems.
Click to expand...

I'd agree with this as well, BFG's quality control has gone to shit in the past few years. Not just on their ATs and MTs, but alot of the tires they've been producing.
 
Since you have adj upper and lower CA's , try dropping the caster below the stock 5.3 degree setting. Tereflex told me to get it as close to 2 degrees as possible. I got it to 2.5 degrees and the DW was gone. I hade some minor drive-line vibes though. To really get rid of it for good, get the RE drop brackets and the supports. Well worth the money. Do RE drop bkts and you can forget about DW, because it will be gone.

Greddy
 
after many hours and wasted money on parts i didnt need i found my DW was caused by the track bar bracket being loose where it bolts to the unibody, i also had to remove the useless T bar drop bracket that came with my kit, since then, no problems
 
RE 4.5" lift, non adjustable UCA/LCAs. I tightened the track bar and the stock frame mount for it and replaced the worn out stock steering stabilizer and so far, no more DW. I think the 4x4 shop dont know wtf they are doing and you are getting reamed for all the work. Nice that you will have all those new parts but its sounds like they are just trying anything and everything they can without knowing what they are really looking for.
 
YYYYYEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!
True your tires
If they drove it with different wheels and yours are ballanced then you most likely have cupping in the tread pattern as I did. It's from not rotating them enough. You'll here a howling sound from your tires that you may think is normal. It's not My Truxux MT's are super quite until left on the front too long.
When I swapped the wheel from the front to the back It caused my jeep to shake like crazy around 50mph.
Having your tires "trued" cost like 15 bucks a piece but well worth it. They put them on a machine like a balancer and run a spinning blade back and forth until its flat all the way across and round all the way around.
 
Oooooooomfg.......dw didn't rip you off.......YOU ripped yourself off by paying over $600 without finding out first how you could of cured the dw yourself..........Ooooooooomfg.......if you are in my hood I will gladly change your muffler bearings, blinker fluid, and EVEN throw in a pine tree airfreshner for a case of fat tire and a liter of jack :D
 
The wheel/tire combo they tried had different backspacing/ offset, I bet. I've seen this several times. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the balance or shape/wear of these particular tires, the backspace of the wheel changes the scrub radius. In other words a wheel that sticks further out will have more of a pull on the suspension and may eliminate wobble. Or it may have too much and a stock wheel gets rid of it. There's a lot of forces at work in these front ends.

To clarify- several times I have taken a dynamically balanced wheel/tire combo and changed wheels only, to a different (less) backspaced wheel, and gotten rid of DW.

Not to say you shouldn't look at everything else first.
 
Immortal said:
Oooooooomfg.......dw didn't rip you off.......YOU ripped yourself off by paying over $600 without finding out first how you could of cured the dw yourself..........Ooooooooomfg.......if you are in my hood I will gladly change your muffler bearings, blinker fluid, and EVEN throw in a pine tree airfreshner for a case of fat tire and a liter of jack :D
Click to expand...

youre an idiot and that was in no way helpful or appropriate for this thread.
 
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