Allignment isn't helping DW. Thinking it may be something else...

After recently swapping out a newer front axle, I have adjusted my trac bar and of course unbolted all the steering. The jeep rides great when I don't hit bumps, which is when it goes into a bad death wobble. My parents went and had it alligned, so I couldn't see the work they did, or the comparison sheet, but it did get better. No bad wobbles really, until a couple of days later. Now I have that wobble back, and I don't understand what is going on. I'm going to tighten all of my control arms again to see if that may help, because when it does wobble, I hear a very hard knocking coming from the front left tire. It seems that's where the wobbling is initiating, but by golly, it won't keep from wobbling.

I was thinking that maybe my rod ends would be worn, especially on the drag link and pitman arm, since I am able to rotate the drag link inwards and outwards, if that makes much sense. With other tj's I was inspecting, they had very tight drag links that I couldn't really even move without trying too hard.

Could all of these things be the accumulating factors to my death wobble? I never had death wobble before the axle swap, unless I messed with the lift, which was followed by an allignment and a quick fix. Somebody please give some advice, since I have to drive this around highways, and it's getting rather dangerous with all that wobbling.

Need some specs on yuor rig. Lift tires etc.

Do you know what they set your toe-in to? My '89 specs say 0* with the NP242 case and 1/8" toe in for the NP231.

Mine is set at 1/8 toe out, anything less than 0 and I get DW.

Check bushings, ball joints, track bar length and do a search. My rig DW'd pretty bad until I lengthened my track bar. I have a bushing/ball joint issue now, so it is back.

HTH

klunking sounds like a bad ball joint. grab the tire and push back and forth sideways and see if it moves at all. if it does, theres your problem.

Yea my tire actually does move whenever I push it side to side. My friends were trying to figure out what it was. How do I go about changing them? I was thinking of setting my toe out just a little bit, since that seemed to help the last time I had dw. Getting towed, tires turned, got dragged like that for a bit in slick mud, it was enough to get it perfect

edit:
And my trac bar is perfectly centered where it needs to be. What I did was I lined up the driveshaft with the tcase and set the tracbar there.

My lift is 6.5" with 33x10.5x15 tires, short arms.

The clicking you describe really sounds like it could be a ball joint. The shimmy shake in my '98 XJ was cause by a combination of bad ball joints, cupped tires, and worn out control arm bushings.

(This checklist was started by XJNation but I couldn't find his original post. Other stuff has been added to it too by other people.)

FRONT END CHECK LIST:
(Check your Haynes or Chiltons manual to id part locations. "*" means do with jeep on jack stands.)

1. Tire Balance
(Watch them do it if you can. A lot of shops don't do it right.) Clean your tires & rims before taking the Jeep in to get the tires balanced. Most shops use a high speed rotating balancer with digital scales but make sure. Occasionally a shop will just use a bubble balance on larger tires and they don't do well. Make sure the mechanic removes the old weights before balancing. If at all possible use rim mounted weights. A good balance will read zeros on both digital scales.

2. Lug Nuts
Double check all lugs nut for tightness, especially after having it in the shop.

*3. Loose suspension or steering parts
Put jackstands under the front axle and check all suspension & steering for loose parts. Banging around with a rubber mallet might help. (Everything feels good with weight on it.)

* 4. Ball Joints
Check ball joints for play. While the vehicle is on jack stands, put a long pry bar under the tire and try to make it move up & down. Watch the ball joints and if any movement at the joint they should be replaced.

5. Trackbar
Remove frame end of trackbar and check joints.
(If it's a stock trackbar and you can move it left-right by hand the bushings are bad. Or, if you can move the bushing with your fingers they're bad.)

6. Alignment
With bigger tires, toe in should be set close to 0".
Do this with jeep on the ground and wheels straight ahead. (You can strap a straight edge horizontally at the centerline of each front tire so there is something easy to measure to. Or just make sure your measuring to the same location on each tire.) The measurement should be a max 1/8" less in the front than in the back and perhaps less. You can adjust this yourself on the tie rod.

7. 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 can twist the shock side to side very much, or if there is a clicking noise from the shock, the bushings need replaced.
- If there is oil running down the side of the shock it needs replaced
- With the jeep in normal position jump up & down on the bumper. The jeep should stop bouncing much with 1-2 bounces.

* 8. Steering Joints
Check all steering joints without weight on the front, then recheck with weight on the frame for increased resistance. With the jeep turned off, reach up from below and grab the steering column just before the gear box. Rotate the column by hand as you watch each joint from the pitman arm on down to the tires. Watch for play at each joint.

* 9. Hub bearings
With the front on jack stands, grab the top & bottom of the tire and try to wiggle the tire in & out. If there is play, the hub bearing is bad or wheel nut is loose.

10. Steering box
Rock the steering wheel side to side and make sure you see a coresponding movement at the pitman arm. Five degrees or more of steering movement without moving the pitman arm is probably too much.

Here's a couple more:
* 11. Control Arms
This may be a problem in jeeps that have off roaded. Bang on both ends of the upper & lower control arms. If there is the sound of metal on metal the c.a. bushings need replaced. If questionable, but jack stands under the frame and remove the control arms to visually inspect the bushings. The rubber part should not have significant cracks or tears.

12. Badly worn or damaged tires could cause "wobble" also. No easy way to check without just replacing the tires.

:repair:

Another cople of things to check.

Steering damper, visually check for oil leaking from the piston, check mountings for security, disconnect one end, push piston in and out to check you have considerable resistance.

Caster angle. If you have a big lift and the lower arms are stock length, you need to adjust to restore caster. This gives the self centering effect to the steering when the Jeep is moving and helps to keep it stable at speed.

I don't understand? So many people say they had an alignment done and then wonder if they have worn parts. IF YOU HAD AN ALIGNMENT DONE, THE MECHANIC SHOULD HAVE OR WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU ABOUT ANY WORN PARTS. Check all other aspects of the problem, like are your track bar and drag link parallel, etc.
I just don't beleive there are many shops out there that wouldn't jump at the chance to replace some worn parts. If they didn't they are either stupid or negligent.

xjj33p3r said:

My lift is 6.5" with 33x10.5x15 tires, short arms.

Click to expand...

theres yer problem. the control arms are at too steep of an angle. get drop brackets if you want to keep the short arms (this is what i did) or buy a longarm upgrade.

olivedrabcj7 said:

theres yer problem. the control arms are at too steep of an angle. get drop brackets if you want to keep the short arms (this is what i did) or buy a longarm upgrade.

Click to expand...

They are not stock arms. They are setup to be the right length.

As for shops doing allignments, these guys are not very compitant. They that more than half an hour to do an allignment, and they've never told me abou worn parts, and when I have seen them do it, they are usually having lunch in between. They've never inspected any of the joints, or told me about busted grease bushings or anything like that, because it's too much work for them. I don't know exactly what steering should feel like since this jeep was old when I started driving it anyways.

Thankyou for that check list, it's going to be very helpful in figuring out the problem

i would point my finger at those arms being a major part of the problem...when one wheel moves upward, it also moves forward. The axle and steering linkage try to force the other wheel down and rearward...and the wobble begins.

with a shorter lift i think short arms are fine, but i think 6+ inches is a bit much for 'em. IMHO, anyway

Another thing about the control arms - the "frame" side nut has to be torqued to 133 ft/lbs. Any less, and you could experience some clunking.