Kevin, Jeep is looking great man. Nice pics from the weekend. Looking forward to going wheeling with you again. Last time we did I was in Betty the grey Jeep at Hollister and almost flipped her onto her lid.
Hahaaha good times out there Chris, can't wait to wheel some rocks with ya!
Jon, we better meet up on the trail sometime this summer.
So I am having some insane death wobble now. Can't even drive it around the block without getting DW. I had no problems with it for months and as soon as I got home from school it began acting up.
Thinking it was my tie rod rolling, I put some rubber bushings (made them out of rubber door stops) under the tie rod heim joints to combat the rolling. This solved the problem, until the bushings tore apart and fell off (lasted 4 days). So I just tried replacing the rubber with another kind I grabbed from the local hardware store and it actually seems worse. Maybe I should go poly?
I can't completely lock the heim in place, It needs to be able to rotate some as the knuckle moves.
Any other ideas of what to do? Things to check? Im going out to check the caster in a minute or two. Track bar is fine, ball joints are fine, steering box is tight, toe hasn't changed since I welded the heims on the tierod (which I wish I didn't do). Any other ideas on how to combat the tie rod roll? It needs to have some give to it, but not too much.
i bet your tie rod bolts at the frame side bracket are loose, or the actual mounting bolts on the frame and axle are loose put a breaker bar on there.
loose any wheel weights?
are your UCA and LCA bolts tight? how are the bushings?
sloppy tie rods or hiems would cause sloppy steering before death wobble i would say.
please crank the hell outta the breaker bar on all 4 trackbar bolts, the frame side bolt, and the axle side bolt. check wheel bearings for play, and ball joints. put a floor jack under the thing, and wiggle the tires once you jack them up.
have your pops or a friend turn the steering wheel back and forth with the thing on, and check each LCA and UCA for play, the steering for play, and the trackbar for play. and the box for up and down movement. check you steering box bolts bolts, 5/8 socket,a nd crank on them. look for cracks in the front crossmember behind the bumper for the frame, check for frame cracks around the steering box and trackbar. out of balance tires can cause it too.
my old swampers had DW until they got balanced. weir.d
yeah, such a pain. I am going to rotate my tires tomorrow after work and see if that helps. I am thinking that my tires are wearing funny and causing it to go crazy. New tires solved my last DW problem (3 or 4 years ago).. We will see.
yeah, such a pain. I am going to rotate my tires tomorrow after work and see if that helps. I am thinking that my tires are wearing funny and causing it to go crazy. New tires solved my last DW problem (3 or 4 years ago).. We will see.
rotating shouldnt solve the problem. New tires might if yours are seperating or out of round. If they are out of balance they will make DW worse but they cant be that out of balance to cause it.
i meant to say trackbar bolts at the frame side , not tie rod. put a breaker bar on everything and crank it all down. how are your wheel bearings?
maybe go get your tires balanced to rule that out?
my money is on trackbar. wallowed out axle side mount, sloppy bushing, and loose frameside mounting bolts all around, as well as some other loose components and steering is only magnifying it and making it worse. balancing tires wont hurt.
bent housing?
Thanks for the offer Josh, but Im not up in the Sac area for the summer. I have a few buddies at Americas tire here in town. Might have them give it a shot. Thanks a lot for the offer though!
Jon, I know it is not a problem on the axle side as I have a brand new Ruffstuff bracket there, and the heims are still fairly new. I will definitely crank down the frame side bracket as that one is stock. Ill check the steering box bolts as well. I sure hope my housing isn't bent... not sure how that would have happened though.
Very simple jack up the wheel off the ground grab the top and the bottom of the wheel and if you feel any movement between were the wheel bolts on and the axle. But if you have a stock front end youll have a unit bearing which, believe me, if there worn out you would have known along time ago. But if you jave noraml style bearings they just may need to be tightened.
A little tip when I did mine the first time I forgot to torque them down and it went out in about 100 miles.
Ball joints feel fine. All joints in the steering and track bar are tight. Wobble at 4* caster. Wobble at 6.5* caster. Toe is in roughly 3/16". Steering box is tight. Frame side track bar mount is tight, axle side is a ruffstuff mount welded on (no cracks). Heim joints with roughly 1500 miles on them - still feel tight. Rotated my tires. 32 psi = wobble. 25psi = wobble. Inverted T steering setup = wobble. Just ran my drag link out to my knuckle today (crossover setup) to get rid of the tie rod roll and I still have death wobble. Control arm bushings feel fine (what is the best way to check these?).
I am stumped. It drove great for months and out of the blue it goes crazy. Any ideas? I need to figure this out ASAP so I can stop borrowing people's cars to get to work.
do you have adjustable LCAs? what about uppers? When I had my death wobble at like 4" lift it was because of my stock lca. I bought rubicon fixed and they went away. but maybe yours need more adjustment.... just my .2
Dang when I had mine I thought I was having a hell of a time. But yours is just outrageous.
Since you have checked all the adjustable parts on the entire front end. You may want to start questioning to see if the housing its self is still straight or if the C's are straight. Having either of those two bent might be causing the issue. Also when was the last time you replaced the unit bearings(wheel bearing assembly)???
Also for mine it was the control arm bushings. I'm not sure if I read that, I just skimmed thru it all.
To check to unit bearing Jack up one side and grab the top and bottom and try to wiggle it.. The center bolt that holds the assembly On should be yorqued to 100ft lbs or something close to that.
If the unit bearing is really loose it wont last long, like if the main nut was hand tighten. Buf if it was cranked to around 90 ft. lbs it should last a while but could also be giving you all these issuez.
As for the control arm bushings best way is to turn the wheel and look for any play. B
Most rubber/poly bushings from my experiance last maybe 2 years after that they start to rott.
To check to unit bearing Jack up one side and grab the top and bottom and try to wiggle it.. The center bolt that holds the assembly On should be yorqued to 100ft lbs or something close to that.
If the unit bearing is really loose it wont last long, like if the main nut was hand tighten. Buf if it was cranked to around 90 ft. lbs it should last a while but could also be giving you all these issuez.
As for the control arm bushings best way is to turn the wheel and look for any play. B
Most rubber/poly bushings from my experiance last maybe 2 years after that they start to rott.
Alrighty.. So I checked my unit bearings and they were fine. Quadruple checked my ball joints and they were fine. Then I went through all of my suspension bolts and tightened them down. Didn't do anything, and I still was getting death wobble..
So I finally caved in and cut up the tack welds that were locking the heims in place on my tie rod. I twisted the rod a few times which resulted in an outward toe of 1/8" according to my shower curtain toe check. Took it for a drive and it seems fine so far!
I know being toed out isn't exactly optimal... What bad effects will I see while being toed out? It will only be for a day or two until I can pull the jeep up on the alignment rack at work.
I actually had an alignment shop down in San Diego that told me that doing a toe out was better for the XJ's inverted Y (and TJ's, ZJ's and WJ's I assume) because it would induce less tire scrub when turning. Causing less tire wear that way. He set it up with the toe out and it drove fine and I don't recall there being any unusual tire wear or any other problems with it. But that was about 13 or 14 years ago when I only had 4" of lift and stock steering parts on the XJ.
