Scary steering/front axle problem

I run a hp44 front axle off a '79 ford with the stock arms(radius I believe). It is still at full width.

I took it in to the shop the other day and the had the entire hub assembly repled along with new wheel bearing installed and u-joints.

I took the jeep up to Browns Camp ORV area on saturday and on the way up whenever I hit a bump the right side of the axle would jack itself up and down and cause the whole rig to shake violently and the only way to stop it was to slam on the brakes. Moderately braking wouldn't stop it.

I took it slow on the trails, did some rock crawling and what not but never had it jack around like that. Headed back to camp and it happened 4 times.

We camped out over night and headed home this morning and ended up having to drive on the freeway where it did it multiple times. Which is super scary going 70mph.

I got home a couple hours ago but had to run to a friend house. Its a total of five blocks to his house. On the way there and back it did it a total of 5 times. I went 10mph the last block and a half.

I'm incredibly scared to drive it right now. I have no idea what's going on. I checked as many bolts as I could and did not find anything to be loose.

Any ideas?

Heres a pic of my setup.


Please if any one has any suggestions let me know.

Sounds to me like the wheelbearing on that side is not properly adhusted. Jack up that tire and check the play, top to bottom/front to back and see if you can even kinda feel any play. If you do, that is the culprit. If it didn't do it before you change that hub and rotor, that is the only thing it can be.

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried the wheel bearing thing, I couldnt feel any play.

I have had it happen before, but it was very very weak compared to what its doing now.

The steering doesn't look bad, the track bar is pretty close to the same angle. Hows the caster angle. Do you have a lot of play in the steering? Check tie rod ends.

What you're talking about is Death Wobble, and can be caused by anything at all being loose in your front end, bad shocks, and by tires that are out of balance. Check the ball joints and the track bar, and your shock bushings. have a friend turn the wheel back and forth slightly while you look at the front end and look for anything at all that has play in it. Since it seems to be getting worse, look for something that could be deteriorating quickly, like a bushing. I'd check the track bar axle mount very closely.

check your alignment, my latest cause of death wobble was cracks around the steering box

I had a bent rim that caused mine to drive like crap.

jeff

Alignment was pretty crucial for me. I put my D44 on my XJ and I had DW until I got it aligned (20 minutes later).

Ironically, I drove 80 miles last night without my trackbar. It is not something I am proud of but I actually broke it off road. The only reason I am mentioning it is that I did not have ANY Death Wobble on the way home. I actually expected to have some BAD DW. I did not go over 35 MPH at all though (and it took me FOREVER to get home) and I did hit bumps in the road that would have caused me to get DW before I got it aligned. Also EVERYTHING in the front end of mine is new.

My $.02

Wait a mintue........back the truck up.........you actually were brave/stupid enough to drive without a trackbar???? Do you have very stiff springs or just dumb luck?

CartsXJ said:

Wait a mintue........back the truck up.........you actually were brave/stupid enough to drive without a trackbar???? Do you have very stiff springs or just dumb luck?

Click to expand...

Dumb is what actually comes to mind. Remember, this is NOT something I am proud of. We originally just drove it to get out off of the trail but it was incredibly stable. So we drove it slowly on the road to get a feeling of how it was and it was 'fair.' It was also 2:00 in the morning so no one was on the roads. If it were any other time I probably wouldn't have done it. I had a sleeping bag in the tent and was prepared to an 'all nighter' but I guess I got lucky.

CartsXJ said:

...you actually were brave/stupid enough...

Click to expand...

Wow, I got a beat up for asking the same question and I didn't even call him stupid!

ratchet straps work well for this kinda stuff, i busted a LCA off and wheeled out (and home) w/ a ratchet strap holding my axle to my front bumper

for the track bar, you need 2 straps, from the drivers UCA mount to the passangers tow hook mount, and from the passangers UCA mount to the drivers tow hook mount, making an X..... for future referance, it works real well

tealcherokee said:

for the track bar, you need 2 straps, from the drivers UCA mount to the passangers tow hook mount, and from the passangers UCA mount to the drivers tow hook mount, making an X..... for future referance, it works real well

Click to expand...

We were actually going to do that but again, as shocking as it sounds, it didn't drive bad or even have wobble. It took us a while to get out of the trail so I had some descent fire road driving to do with descent bumps in it (plenty after the LA rains this year) and it felt 'fair' enough to proceed. I am in as much shock as you are reading this.

Wolz said:

Wow, I got a beat up for asking the same question and I didn't even call him stupid!

Click to expand...

Now I can say I actually did a rock-garden with no track bar and 35s. Thank god I have the ARB because if I was locked I wouldn't have been able to get out of there.

I don't want to ever do that again so I put some extra braces on my trackbar to increase the welded area.