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xj death wobble

big cherokee

NAXJA Forum User
Location
portland oregon
i just got done puttin my seven inch lift on my 89 xj its running 33inch thornebirds and re coils,trackbar,bracket,and upper arms and pro-comp modified lowers,and skyjacker shocks. I have not yet installed my drop pitman which is gonna be a sky jacker for there eight inch lift. My jeep when coming up on 35 mph will start to shake horible so bad i have to stop and make sure nothing is coming apart under it i have double and triple checked all bolts. I had these tires on before i had the llift and had some vibes but nothing like now. Jeep has almost 200k on it and all ball joints are gonna get replaced to. Any help would be appreciated.
 
Do you have a long arm kit? It seems like anything above 6" of lift is to much angle for the control arms for the stock location. I only know of a couple people who have made more than a 6" lift work without going to a long arm kit. Make sure you take it to a good alignment shop that you trust. Also it is important that your track bar and drag link angle are really close. So a drop pitman arm might make it worse. Xj's already have a drop pitman, adding drop is a lot more leverage on you steering box. Good luck. Let us know what you figure out.
 
I had a 88 Bronco. when I was trying it out (used of course). It only had 31s and it would throw you out of the road above 30 mph. It turned out that the tires were way out of balance. Once balanced,it dorve great.

Maybe you lost a weight during the wheel tossing when you took them off to install the lift. This happened to the "punkbitch" while we were doing his lift. He had to go get a weight put back on.
 
I also had the same problem with one of my tires, it had a blown cord internally and it didnt show on the outside until it gave out 5 months later..
 
big cherokee said:
i just got done puttin my seven inch lift on my 89 xj its running 33inch thornebirds and re coils,trackbar,bracket,and upper arms and pro-comp modified lowers,and skyjacker shocks. I have not yet installed my drop pitman which is gonna be a sky jacker for there eight inch lift. My jeep when coming up on 35 mph will start to shake horible so bad i have to stop and make sure nothing is coming apart under it i have double and triple checked all bolts. I had these tires on before i had the llift and had some vibes but nothing like now. Jeep has almost 200k on it and all ball joints are gonna get replaced to. Any help would be appreciated.
IMHO, that's too much elevation for stock CA locations.

At stock angles, the CAs are near parallel to the ground and bump shock is deflected upwards in an arc with the LCAs. At lifts over 5" the angles are so extreme that bump shock is transmitted through the LCA and "pushed" into the body and thus no deflection. At 7", the axle will almost try to deflect in a downward direction under the vehicle.

Imagine in your head, the havoc that is being wreaked in the stock setup.SCARY!

CA drop brackets or an LA kit get the angles back down closer to stock or moderately lifted angles.

Now imagine how much happier those components would be.

Again, this is only what I understand on the subject and my opinion, but at 7" of lift this seems more likely the problem than an outa balanced tire. Especially if they were already balanced before the lift.
 
i alighned it today. And was just reading another web sight about death wobble which is what i am experiencing every time i hit a medium sized bump. ON smooth roads its fine and handles good but on bumps no way. But i found that i have the wrong bolt for my re track bar and it has movement in it and that will couse my bump steer so i need to find out where i can get a bolt and the sleeves for the sperical rod end to center it and make it solid i also ordered a new steering stabalizer and drop pitman from four wheel parts both skyjacker products. Any more help is appreciated.
 
I have 7"s of lift on my XJ too. You need re drop brackets and braces or go to LA's. You can mess around with all the other stuff and you will still get DW with that much lift. I would also seriously think about steering drag link and Tie-rod and their ends too. They need to be replaced with Currie or chevy one-ton set up over. All you need for a drop pit is a ZJ pitman. Also an RE drop track bar bracket and heavy duty track bar (adj) would be good too.

Yea... you've opened up a can of worms, let us show you how to fish with them.

When you set it up right, you can do this and still drive it home...

fa50bd95.jpg


Greddy (4 years of lifted XJ dd bliss)
 
i dont think you need the drop brackets i had a 85 cherokee with eight inch skyjacker springs and runing tera flex upper and lower short arms. And it was fine with a drop pitman and the teraflex adjustible track bar. I could wheel it all day and drive it home no problem. I fixed my problem. I am runing a re adjustible track bar and heavy duty drop bracket but i didnt have the right bolt for the sperical rod end and it had about a half inch of movement letting the axle move side to side and get the tires going to start the death wobble so i ordered the bolt and sleeves from re and installed them all good now and for good measure put on the skyjacker stuff even better back to driving every day and wheelin when ever i feel thanks for the input thought.
 
I got death wobble too =/

I lifted my xj 2" with the Rubicon Express bost and put some 31" Goodyear Wranglers on it and almost everytime I get on the freeway going about 55 and hit a certin spot in the road my truck just wobbles all over the place. After my lift I went and got it aligned, but that didn't fix the problom. What else could it be?
 
GIJill said:
I lifted my xj 2" with the Rubicon Express bost and put some 31" Goodyear Wranglers on it and almost everytime I get on the freeway going about 55 and hit a certin spot in the road my truck just wobbles all over the place. After my lift I went and got it aligned, but that didn't fix the problom. What else could it be?

What are your alignment specs?

The usual cause is wheel balance, closely followed by alignment (especially caster). We need to know what the settings are.
 
Eagle said:
What are your alignment specs?

The usual cause is wheel balance, closely followed by alignment (especially caster). We need to know what the settings are.



I don't know what my specs are currently, I just had it aligned a couple weeks ago immediatly after installing the lift. I handed the alignment guy the paper that came with the lift which detaled toe and caster guidelines and I assume he did his job. Sorry I'm not good at the technical end of this. :dunno:
 
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