Need Some Death Wobble Help

J

JordanHaskin

New member
A little( ok pretty long) back story. Back in October I went on a wheeling trip and at some point hit my RF lower control arm mount hard enough to bend it and knock( I know, the shitty) cam bolt out of adjustment and screwed up my castor. Didn’t drive it much after that until winter but noticed a bit of feathering on my tires from the toe being out. So now before the roads start to warm up I decided to get an alignment done at a buddy’s shop who isn’t charging me or I would do it at home. My castor was around the 1.3 degree mark on both sides and toe was out. He couldn’t get me a printout as his computer was doing an update. So they adjusted castor to 4.2 degrees and adjusted the toe to spec and on my way home I hit a set of rail road tracks and I suddenly have death wobble. Went back and they turned castor down a bit seeing it was happy there before. Still has death wobble. I went home and had my wife rock the wheel while I checked things out and noticed my TB flexing a bit but bolts not moving so I put the adjustable one from my lift back in, torqued to 125 FT/LBSand centred my axle and test drive- still have DW. No play in DL or TR ends. Jacked up and checked BJ’s- no play. Checked wheel bearings- no play. Front lower arms have a bit of play in the bushings. In October I did a DL flip with raised TB bracket. I rotated my tires back to where they were last week and test drove it- still DW. Any other thoughts? Any help would be great because I’m not ready to pull my car out of storage yet and need to keep driving my Jeep.


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WJCO said:
Check track bar bolt torque and check for bushing play there.
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Torque is good. I changed the track bar today and torqued it down and had my wife move the wheel after looking for movement and saw nothing.


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MattAlpha said:
Are your tires balanced?


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Haven’t had them checked as this all happened Friday but I had no death wobble before rotating and alignment. I rotated the tires back to where they were before I rotated them and no change so I don’t think tires are my problem. It either has to do with toe or caster change


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JordanHaskin said:
Haven’t had them checked as this all happened Friday but I had no death wobble before rotating and alignment. I rotated the tires back to where they were before I rotated them and no change so I don’t think tires are my problem. It either has to do with toe or caster change


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I first experienced death wobble after smashing my steering stabilizer off on a rock and bending my tie rod and driving home. I then went on to do EVERYTHING in wayoflife’s death wobble thread. The wobble got better with every fix and literally disappeared entirely after changing my ball joints to Dynatrac Prosteers. Just because the wobble started when I broke my stabilizer/ tie rod doesn’t mean there weren’t five other worn out components on my Jeep that were also contributing to death wobble.

The point is, don’t write off a known death wobble fix, like tire balancing, because you THINK you know what the cause is and is not.



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Cousin Clyde said:
I first experienced death wobble after smashing my steering stabilizer off on a rock and bending my tie rod and driving home. I then went on to do EVERYTHING in wayoflife’s death wobble thread. The wobble got better with every fix and literally disappeared entirely after changing my ball joints to Dynatrac Prosteers. Just because the wobble started when I broke my stabilizer/ tie rod doesn’t mean there weren’t five other worn out components on my Jeep that were also contributing to death wobble.

The point is, don’t write off a known death wobble fix, like tire balancing, because you THINK you know what the cause is and is not.



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The only reason I don’t think it’s tires is because Sunday I hit the same set of tracks after rotating my tires and had no issue. Monday dropped it off for alignment, they raised my castor and adjusted my toe, didn’t drive the Jeep til Thursday night and hit the same tracks then had death wobble. So rotated my tires back to where they were and had castor lowered and I still have it. I checked my wheels for weights and can’t see where any have moved or fallen off. I only have death wobble because of the alignment change. So unless the toe is causing it, or the improved castor angle is somehow causing it I don’t know what else to b look at.


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POOJEEP said:
How much lift? It sounds like you need more caster, not less imo
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3.5” lift but not sure on actual amount. They went up to factory castor but that gave me death wobble so they lowered it down a bit because it was happy where it was until I can figure out what’s going on.


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We have the same DW happening. And I have also checked ALL joints. Replaced every steering joint there. Everything is torqued marked and rechecked. Caster is set at 4.25 and even on both sides. Even tried the caster at different angles, Tires checked out good, and I rotated them. I also have adjustable ball joints. For some reason I do have to keep adjusting them. I called Teraflex and told them about needing to readjust andm they sent me a new set. Will be changing them out, Again in less then 8 month's. Not thinking that will be the final fix but we will see. This all started on my way home from the 4 wheel alignment. I think that when the teck did the alignment he just used Teraflex adjustable arm setup numbers off of there installation instructions for there kit. I think I was better off doing my own aliment.
 
madjeeper said:
We have the same DW happening. And I have also checked ALL joints. Replaced every steering joint there. Everything is torqued marked and rechecked. Caster is set at 4.25 and even on both sides. Even tried the caster at different angles, Tires checked out good, and I rotated them. I also have adjustable ball joints. For some reason I do have to keep adjusting them. I called Teraflex and told them about needing to readjust andm they sent me a new set. Will be changing them out, Again in less then 8 month's. Not thinking that will be the final fix but we will see. This all started on my way home from the 4 wheel alignment. I think that when the teck did the alignment he just used Teraflex adjustable arm setup numbers off of there installation instructions for there kit. I think I was better off doing my own aliment.
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I feel like paying for an alignment on a solid axle vehicle is way over priced. It's toe and steering wheel alignment. Why does it cost as much as a 4 wheel independent suspension alignment.

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fiend said:
Not quite. There’s caster and you can also adjust camber with shims and/or offset ball joints.


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Caster is done with cam bolts which I feel like is even more of a waste in time and money and camber is going to be up-charged to hell if they have to install ball joint shims. The $80-$100 you pay for an "alignment" is pretty much toe and steering wheel.

On a side note I fixed cars for 6 years and everything that a shop charges seems like a waste of money to me so my opinion may not be the best to go by.

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madjeeper said:
We have the same DW happening. And I have also checked ALL joints. Replaced every steering joint there. Everything is torqued marked and rechecked. Caster is set at 4.25 and even on both sides. Even tried the caster at different angles, Tires checked out good, and I rotated them. I also have adjustable ball joints. For some reason I do have to keep adjusting them. I called Teraflex and told them about needing to readjust andm they sent me a new set. Will be changing them out, Again in less then 8 month's. Not thinking that will be the final fix but we will see. This all started on my way home from the 4 wheel alignment. I think that when the teck did the alignment he just used Teraflex adjustable arm setup numbers off of there installation instructions for there kit. I think I was better off doing my own aliment.
Click to expand...

Even at 4.25° on "both sides" and on a solid axle. Wow, you're so super talented :thumb:

Good to know you're running TeraFlex too :yup:
 
Possibly Ball Joints, or Wheel Bearings. I thought my wheel bearings were good also initially, there was no play in the wheel when i jacked up the jeep and could not hear anything when I spun them by hand. After removing them and spinning them you could hear the bearings grinding. I swapped them out with Timken wheel bearing hub assemblies and life is good.
 
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