cozdude
Guy with a Red 2-Door
what you mean to say is that a balance wobble can be misconstrued as death wobble. its cheaper and easier to eliminate balance wobble first just to make sure its full blown death wobble
Desperate for a 4x4 shop near Loyalton, CA (or Truckee or Reno)
- Thread starter cosmokenney
- Start date
cosmokenney
Caught the Bug
Every component has been checked for play and every single fastener has been loosened and torqued to spec. Both the lift and steering are too new to have play anyway. The amount of toe-in and castor is the only logical next step. It is cited all over the Internet that toe and castor are common contributors to death wobbles. And in fact when I reduced the toe to about 0.1 to 0.2 degrees it stopped the violent death wobble. The only thing that remains a problem at this point is a slight wobble/shimmy when going over bumps. Castor should still be at 6ish degrees.
I do welcome any suggestions for finding the root cause of the remaining wobble if you have any, though.
cosmokenney
Caught the Bug
I forgot to mention that I am still getting vibrations at certain speeds. I can feel them in the steering wheel. I firmly believe this to be related to some heavy wet snow that got packed up into the wheels and scraped off some weights. I will be making an appointment next week to get the wheels rebalanced.
But this is a different feeling than the wobble I get when I hit a bump.
CalSgt
Hooked
There’s a place in Susanville, McCracken Motorsports. I can’t personally vouch for them but I believe they do work on custom type stuff. I grew up with the owner and always liked him but have no need for his services. A few guys from work have given positive reviews though, one guy is getting the auto trans in his 7.3 power stroke swapped for a 6 speed manual for less than the replacement auto trans was going to cost.
I know a lot of shops don’t really want anything to do with trouble shooting and solving things like lifted jeep death wobble because it can end up being a can of worms.
Every time my Jeep has had a wobble problem it’s been:
Toe getting knocked out of whack
Front track bar bushings
Track bar loose
AND
one time a rear track bar bushings went out, that caused totally different feeling
I chased the wobbles for a long time replacing parts over a period of time. I discovered that previously replaced parts were being destroyed by the wobble. I’d repair something and it would improve but not be eliminated. Ended up going nuts because I was certain the problem wasn’t caused by my almost new parts.
One of the things I discovered eventually was my Fox stabilizer was shot, it had absolutely no dampening. The theory from many here on WAYALIFE is stabilizers mask death wobble and do nothing for the actual problem. While I agree, I discovered replacing my busted stabilizer with a working one prevented my jeep from destroying bushings and parts so fast I couldn’t get to other problems before the last repair was destroyed.
Don’t automatically exclude areas you’ve already inspected and even a tiny bit of play can cause a shimmy.
Good luck Sir
I know a lot of shops don’t really want anything to do with trouble shooting and solving things like lifted jeep death wobble because it can end up being a can of worms.
Every time my Jeep has had a wobble problem it’s been:
Toe getting knocked out of whack
Front track bar bushings
Track bar loose
AND
one time a rear track bar bushings went out, that caused totally different feeling
I chased the wobbles for a long time replacing parts over a period of time. I discovered that previously replaced parts were being destroyed by the wobble. I’d repair something and it would improve but not be eliminated. Ended up going nuts because I was certain the problem wasn’t caused by my almost new parts.
One of the things I discovered eventually was my Fox stabilizer was shot, it had absolutely no dampening. The theory from many here on WAYALIFE is stabilizers mask death wobble and do nothing for the actual problem. While I agree, I discovered replacing my busted stabilizer with a working one prevented my jeep from destroying bushings and parts so fast I couldn’t get to other problems before the last repair was destroyed.
Don’t automatically exclude areas you’ve already inspected and even a tiny bit of play can cause a shimmy.
Good luck Sir