So my dad offered to help fix my jeep since I'm out of money. He doesn't get the whole Jeep thing, so he was gonna make me take it to a mechanic. ...not gonna happen! Anyway, to correct the death wobble, I was holding out for a new kevinsoffroad trac bar with fancy bracket. Then, I found the one made by Rough Country. It's about $100 cheaper, but is it as good? Dad isn't too happy about spending that much money on what he sees as a worthless rig.
Question #1. Will an adjustable trac bar with drop bracket FIX the wobble?
Question #2. The RC site says that trac bar requires me to also get a drop pitman arm. Why?
If your trackbar is bad, a trackbar might fix it. If your trackbar is good, you are wasting money. Can you see the ends moving if you try to jiggle it? Have you torqued all bolts to spec?
Drop pitman arm is to keep the draglink and the trackbar as close to parallel as possible, so you steer straight when going over bumps.
A new trackbar will definitely fix your death wobble!!
If it is the only cause of your death wobble. You should be able to see a problem with the bar if there is one, but you may have a dozen other things going on under there as well!
Here are the first three hits I got searching for death wobble:
All I had to do was read the title.... each vehicle is different with DW. I just got mine back from the shop like 45 minutes ago. $380 later...... DW fixed. Mine needed new TRE, track bar (ball joint was shot), alignment, and steering stabilizer. And that was AFTER I checked everything, torqued it all, changed a lot of things....
It could fix your issue, or help a little, or none at all. Before you dump your money into it, do some intense research on DW and what causes it.
1. Read up on death wobble. As mentioned, there is no lack of threads on this.
2. Perform a comprehensive inspection of all equipment that can cause death wobble. If you don't know how to do this, find a shop with a competent front end tech. that does.
It is really impossible for us to diagnose the cause of your death wobble without being there.
sit in front of the jeep and shake it side to side as hard as you can. feel around for loose things, clunking etc. the trackbar TRE and/or axle bushing is a likely culprit
The current trac bar's ball joint is totally shot and the stud shimmies around in the bracket by just pushing it with my hand. I've torqued the crown nut down as much as I can. Speaking of which, I failed to put the pin back through the crown nut after installing my lift kit. The trac bar popped off on the interstate about 2 months later. Bad day! That was 2 years ago. Maybe that should've been a clue to replace the trac bar then. :-/
Other than that, the wheel hub assemblies are beyond shot, and everything else but the steering stabilizer is original.
Would it be better if I took it to a shop??? It's on my dad's dime. Not sure if he'd go for that.
The current trac bar's ball joint is totally shot and the stud shimmies around in the bracket by just pushing it with my hand. I've torqued the crown nut down as much as I can. Speaking of which, I failed to put the pin back through the crown nut after installing my lift kit. The trac bar popped off on the interstate about 2 months later. Bad day! That was 2 years ago. Maybe that should've been a clue to replace the trac bar then. :-/
Other than that, the wheel hub assemblies are beyond shot, and everything else but the steering stabilizer is original.
Would it be better if I took it to a shop??? It's on my dad's dime. Not sure if he'd go for that.
depends how much of a rush you are in. take the time to pay and do it yourself, or take it to a shop and let them deal with it. My advice would be take it to a shop, Im glad I did because I was far from fixing it myself. But make sure the shop knows what DW is. If they go "uhhhh...." walk away
If you can see an obvious problem it's worth fixing. My drag link had a loose end, and hammering the hell out of it to snug it up was enough to confirm the problem.
I keep greasing it periodically, knowing that it just squirts out, hoping to keep up with it. I haven't had the money to replace it.
Check this image out...I saw some other people doing this elsewhere. So, I drew one myself. Adding a drop bracket will really help with the parallelism, wouldn't it?
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