motha truckin death wobble

[GasAlley]

ehh....listen here noobie....ive taken everybodys advice thats been given on this subject shy of getting new tires. all i got left to do is try another method of balancing these tires. hows your foot taste?

wow I am so impressed by your internet bullying!!! People gave their two cents, you ignored almost all of them. And now you have the nerve to say "Listen here noobie" How would you feel about coming to forums that we are active in and we completely disrespect you because since we have the highest post count you dont know squat compaired to us.

remember your IQ doesnt equal the number of posts you make....

SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCHIE

PS. its the tires... BTW...

 

[olivedrabcj7]

heh...the noobies stand up for each other...this is fun. kinda like pissing on an ant hill.

anywho. the source of my scrubbing sound was my dust shields on my brakes were bent in touching the rotors as they turned. so i bent them out about 1/8" from the rotors and drove down the road. they were silent. it also seems to have killed about 50% of the wobble i was getting. its still there but its all in the tires now. so i kinda killed 2 birds with one stone on this one. well, killed one and injured the other. wobble is still there at times.

 

[maineiac]

i have the same problem with my xj after further inspection i have found a bad hub on the drivers side ,a worn out shock bushing, and a junk steering stabilizer. after the parts get here and are replaced i'll post back with the results. the worse thing is it all started after i replaced the welded drag link( it broke on the trail),and a bent tie rod with a rusty's steering conversion , and replaced the bald ltb's with regular tsl's :wierd: :wierd:

 

[ErikL]

its cool boss, say whatever you want.... this noob was able to clear up a bad case of wobble, but i dont know anything..... i guess a higher post count would make me an automotive expert? does that help you pick up the high school girls at the mall too?

"ive been an active member on .com for xxx years and i have XXXXX posts, wanna go to my place?"

or do you just rely on your tires?

 

[olivedrabcj7]

did i criticise your level of automotive knowledge? didnt think so. i commented that i HAVE ........(thump thump, is this thing on?).........I HAVE taken everybodys advice. even noobies. im trying everything i can. but im taking the route from least to most expensive in terms of fixing it. the last resort, the most expensive fix, would be new tires. my rig is by no means a mall crawler, but i do drive it around town a few times a week just to keep a few miles off my truck. ive never had a rig with swampers on it so they're new to me. if you think i was being a dickhead, try hanging out on pirate and asking a question with noobie status. they will make you cry. ive seen it happen a dozen times.

 

[Lawn Cher']

if you think i was being a dickhead, try hanging out on pirate and asking a question with noobie status. they will make you cry. ive seen it happen a dozen times.

So you were doing the crying then? This noobie squabbling is funny. :laugh3:

 

[MaXJohnson]

This noobie squabbling is funny. :laugh3:

kinda like having our own "Noobie Zoo" :laugh3:

 

[ErikL]

this is fun

 

[scprandy]

Hey, I'm a noobie,and I don't care what you think of me , or say to me.
I just put a 5" lift on my 91 and I'm getting a wobble after I hit some bumps on the road some of the time.
After hearing all the feedback from everybody, I'm starting
to think that I have DW, I'm ready to pony up the cash for
something other than the 31's that are on there now,(old and half bald) I want to put 33's on, does anyone think that is too much
height , am I still going to have problems?
Thank you for any and all input you may have for your humble NOOBIE.

 

[olivedrabcj7]

on the 5" lift, are you running stock control arms or aftermarket? if aftermarket, are they adjustable? and is your trackbar adjustable? with that much lift you can easily run 33's if youre not scared to trim a little.

 

[sarbuck]

:laugh3: :repair: :flame: :viking: Hasta

 

[scprandy]

I've got a 3" Rancho with add a leaf in the rear, and Daystar 2" spacers in front and greasable shackles in rear, the lower control arms are from Rancho(not any longer than stock), I bought an adjustable track bar(dont know manufacturer), I also put on JKS quicker disconn.
Wow, after all that work, I was pissed when I felt the ?DW?
or whatever is happening, sorry dont mean to take over the thread, just wanted to know all of this apply's to me.

 

[Lawn Cher']

I've got a 3" Rancho with add a leaf in the rear, and Daystar 2" spacers in front and greasable shackles in rear, the lower control arms are from Rancho(not any longer than stock), I bought an adjustable track bar(dont know manufacturer), I also put on JKS quicker disconn.
Wow, after all that work, I was pissed when I felt the ?DW?
or whatever is happening, sorry dont mean to take over the thread, just wanted to know all of this apply's to me.

At 5" on stock length control arms, your castor angle is probably no good. You need to get some adjustable control arms and correct that problem.

 

[olivedrabcj7]

well if its jerking the steering wheel out of your hands and you have to pull to the side of the road and check your underwear, thats death wobble. if you just get a slight shimmy and it goes away, thats something else.

 

[scprandy]

Hey, thanks for the input, however, do you have any suggestions on what manufacturer may work with my set up, and do I gain anything by going with adj. uppers as well?

 

[Lawn Cher']

Hey, thanks for the input, however, do you have any suggestions on what manufacturer may work with my set up, and do I gain anything by going with adj. uppers as well?

I can't tell you, it goes against my personal policy of not rehashing readily available information. You could try the friendly search feature though. Good luck.

 

[Danno]

one thing I haven't seen mentioned here is that the lower end of the track bar where it mounts to the axle gets all messed up(the bushing gets shot and the bolt hole in the mount gets wallered out) and causes DW in and of itself. I've had that problem on three XJs and the first thing I replaced was that lower TB bushing (and in one case welded the bolt hole back to stock size)and in every case it either cured the problem or greatly reduced it (that XJ also had other things worn). On my 2000 model I replaced it with a JKS TB and that alone cured that problem.
Most times its a combination of things but I've learn to check this bushing mount the first thing. HTH, Danno

 

[CRASH]

Here's a friendly reminder folks. Stock length arms, mounted in stock locations, at 4.5"+ of lift are going to give you problems. When you hit a bump in the road, the force vectors begin to transmit bumps directly into the control arms rather than into the coil springs. Now, instead of the suspension moving, and since the control arm can't move, the force is transmitted to the tires and steering. OK, so that begins their movement.

The larger the tire, the harder it is to get moving, but conversely, the harder it is to stop moving. This whole thing is made worse by poor Panhard bar angles (where a significant portion of it's travel is horizontal rather than vertical), poor drag link angles, or both. The steeper the drag link angle, in particular, the worse off you will be, as the DW acts upon the dead spot that exists in most solid axle steering sytems. The wobble, in effect, oscillates in the dead spot, between the points where you can feel it.

Now, your poor control arm angle is going to fawk you again, ready?

As the control arms travel, a much greater proportion of their travel is in the horizontal axis rather than the vertical. In essence, when you hit a bump, the control arms must travel forward AND up in order to compress the spring. The forward portion of the travel sets up an axle steer situation, whereby as one side is compressed, the axle steers the opposite direction. You correct by turning back the other way, which now sets the axle steering in the opposite direction again. You end up chasing axle steer all the way down the road, as well as fighting DW along the way.

Moral of the story. Build your junk correctly. Correct steering and Panhard angles by using aftermarket knuckles and Panhard mounts. Keep your junk below 4.5" of lift on OEM control arm mounts.

And it wouldn't hurt to stock some Depends products for that unexpected wobble.

CRASH

P.S. This is not directed at OliveDrab specifically, but the interlopers on this thread.

 

[DorkAlert]

Re: motha truckin wobble

I got tired of reading the entire thread so if this is sounds familiar...so sorry..

The only thing that has not been mentioned is your steering box...hav you check for any play there? If you have had DW for quite a while you may have ruined it anyway...I would not put too much focus on your tires being the main cause...they may start and contribute to your DW but it is definitely going to be attributed to somthing loose..like the already mentioned track-bar, tie rod, draglink, etc.

Long arms would help but not a sure solution...

If you inspect your steering box, remove your drag link and feel for play inside and out....I don't recommend tightening the worm gear bolt...if there is too much play replace the entire box.

That cured my DW and my MTR's were so out of balence that it felt like an 8.0 at 55mph...

Again sorry if I was redundant...

 

[olivedrabcj7]

well, i havent had the wobble since the new stabilizer. i get a little shimmy like my tires are way out of balance (moves the wheel about 1/4" left and right at about 40 mph.....sometimes it smoothes out and doesnt do it above that, other times it does. ill probably add a few golf balls to each tire and add another steering stabilizer. that should solve my shakes. so what if i have to replace stabilizers once or twice a year. its worth it to me if it keeps it from shimmying.