Not your average Death Wobble.

I have it BAD. This is on an my XJ buggy. I thought it may have been related to my bumpsteer issue I was having with my draglink/trackbar angles being off (D60 w/highsteer arms. Draglink runs off of the tie rod [in the factory Ford hole])....but I have that corrected now. Draglink and Trackbar are the same length and within a degree or two of each other's angle.

However-It's just as bad now, if not worse. I got to screwing around with the toe last night, and I now have it set at zero (was slightly toed-in before). Caster is set at 5 degrees. I haven't had a chance to run it down the road to see if it improved or not. I will do that this weekend and report back. I wanted to see what specs are you guys using when aligning your rigs? Anyone had similar issues?

BTW, all joints, bushings, kingpins, and such are in like-new shape. No worn components to blame. I am not running a sway bar at all, and really don't want to have to band-aid the issue with a steering stabilizer if possible (will be doing hydro-assist soon).

tires balanced? broke belt? warped rim or rotor? out of balance ds? knot on tire? mud caked on inside of rims? track bar tight?

How trying new parts, I had the same problem, man its scary. I just went and got new parts parts and bushings, bualaw it was gone.

I have/had DW really bad. right now im trying to get a whole new steering system. tie rod, drag link, track bar, otk style, etc.. (rustys steering system)
i stopped driving mine for a while because i got it so bad once that the tie-rod end on the track bar sheered in half while driving and yeah that sucked...
i have not solved my DW yet but im hoping that rustys steering will help, also newly installed rock krawler arms, balancing of tires, dropped pitman arm, and correct angles on everything will solve that. the only thing left will be te steering box, but ive had that checked out and was told it was in good shape.
something that ive noticed is that my track bar got pretty loose after getting DW a bunch of times and i had to tighten it down quite often but when i did tighten it my DW got a lot better. And any play in the steering arms will cause it to happen initially then it will get progressively worse really fast.
hope this might help you... i feel your pain though. because i have spent so much money and gone through so much trying to bring a stop to this DW and right now the only thing that is stock on my front end is the axle housing and steering box(not talking about the engine and stuff) and im pretty much scarred for life mentally cause every time i hit a bump in any car i get scared im gonna get DW and hit something or something

Could be tires or bad front shocks. Get the hydro assist, that will take care of it.

Goatman said:

Could be tires or bad front shocks. Get the hydro assist, that will take care of it.

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I have similar problems with DW and have tried everything but shocks. are there any ways to test the shock to tell if they are bad enough to cause DW.

Goatman said:

Could be tires or bad front shocks. Get the hydro assist, that will take care of it.

Click to expand...

X2, Nothing like a 2000 PSI steering dampner to quiet things down.

Picked up a hydraulic cylinder this weekend. Should have it together soon, as time allows.


In the meantime, the toe adjustment did actually help out. It's weird though....it doesn't ever go into the wobble now, but it just has the feeling like it's going to. Maybe it's just my paranoia...

Hydro-assist....here I come!

Rebuilt the front DS on my son's TJ couple weeks ago. did an alignment at the same time. had to pull the tie rod to break free the TRE's so the adjuster would work. put it all together and he had Dw to beat the band.
Rotated the tires and dialed in the tow and it went away.
It's amazing how little an adjustment it can take to rid them of DW.

When my Heep had DW, it was from an out of round tire.

I had it really bad for a while i was running about 4 in. with stock control arms yes you can flame me for that but i have since upgraded to rustys radius arm, steering and hd track bar and fame mount setup and bumps i used to cringe when approaching i no longer acknowlege.
Im pretty sure mine was a combination of trackbar and control arms being stock but i know that i now have a better than stock ride. Id say loose track bar or worn control arm bushings. Just my 2 cents.

I had it really bad for a while when i was running stock control arms with 4in. (yes extremely dumb). I haven since upgraded my whole front end short of a new axle. Rustys steering, track-bar and mount, and radius-arm setup. I no longer have dw at all in fact my ride is better now than it ever was stock. I broke my trac-bar twice due to death wobble on the highway. Its definately a sh*t your pants experience. I think that mine was due to loose trac-bar. hope its cured soon i know how frustrating it is.