death wobble?

G

gettinbetterXJ

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Great Lakes IL
I am certain this topic has gotten tons of questions over the years. I helped a buddy install a 2" budget boost today on a 92 XJ, he mentioned a little wobble before we did the install. He just left my house about a half hour ago and called me on his cell to say that he had a case of "Death Wobble" that almost caused him to loose control of the Jeep at 65 mph. I am ABSOLUTLEY CERTAIN we checked all the nuts and bolts up front after the lift install and everything was as it should be. I suggested he check his hubs and his ball joints, is there anything else???? I have read plenty of write ups about the 2 inch BB and none of them say anything about the physics of the suspension being altered enough to cause any ill effects, am I wrong in this assumption?
Thanks in advance,
 
that person is me.

anyways, up until today, i had noticed some wobble from my jeep when i would hit some bumps at higher speeds. however, i never lost control and had to slow down.

today, after the 2" budget boost (AAL's and spacers), on the way home, i hit a bump doing about 65.....and definately had Death Wobble. The whole jeep started shaking from front to back, and I lost control. I had to slam on the brakes to finally get enough control to pull off to the shoulder.

I drove the rest of the way home never going above 55, and didn't have any more problems.

My tires were balanced about 1.5 months ago.
 
Get some one to turn the steering wheel back and for about a 1/4 turn eeach way past center and see if the track bar is bad you'll see it move up on the frame end. If you had a little bit of wobble before a 2" BB will make it worse.
 
Adding lift reduces caster. Less caster doesn't cause death wobble -- the wobble is usually caused by bad tire balance -- but sufficient caster helps delay or mitigate the onset of wobble. If you've been reading these forums for any length of time, you should have seen multiple posts saying ALWAYS GET AN ALIGNMENT AFTER LIFTING.

Even if you had your tires balanced yesterday, you wrote that you had some wobble before lifting. Therefore, something was already out of spec, and the lift just sort of got your attention. Many "technicians" at tire shops these days don't really have a clue what they're doing. They think because the new machines are computerized they can just throw a few weights on and it'll be "good enough." That may work for a small, low profile ricer tire, but it doesn't work for big, heavy, higher profile tires such as we have on Jeeps.

Have the balance redone, and get an alignment.
 
Thanks folks, I am sure IntrepidXJ has been reading these responses as well and will get that stuff done. There is no worse feeling than helping somebody do something to their Jeep and then get a call about something not being right! I hope it is just a matter of the allignment and balancing!
 
i'll try and get the alignment and balancing done tomorrow and see if that helps any.

just don't feel like spending money to balance almost bald tires....
 
Try rotating them front to rear and see if that makes a difference. Also check the toe-in -- it's easy to do that with a tape measure (and a helper). You're looking for zero toe if you have the Selec-Trac transfer case, or 1/16" +/- if you have Command-Trac.
 
what kind of shape are your control bushings in?
 
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