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Ugh, Death wobble (DW). Sorry to start a new thread

3K views 18 replies 5 participants last post by  bnine 
#1 ·
2005 TJ Sport SE. 57k miles
2" budget boost
DW at 45-50mph.

So I'll start off by saying this, I'm highly mechanically inclined and not a moron. :2thumbsup:

Next. History: owned the jeep since new. Put on 2" lift and 33's, then and the alignment done at Les Shwab in Oregon. Ran that set up until the last two months. DW started happening out of no where.

Looking at the suspension I found that the Drivers Tie rod had some slop in it. Did a little reading on this forum and found out the most common issues on these rigs.
So I pulled the gun and just replaced everything with brand new parts, but upgraded.
I installed 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee V8 model steering components because they have the larger solid bar cross over linkage.
New tie rods
New Track bar :NOTE: Found a little slop in the bolt hole of the new track bar. Hole was slightly larger than the factory bolt. The bracket was fine and was perfectly round according to my digital calipers. Installed a slightly larger bolt which required running a drill bit through the hole only.

New steering stab.
Took off 33x12.50x15's and put stock tires/wheels back on.
Then had full ballance on wheels performed and alignment checked.
Also had them inspect the jeep because of DW.
They found no issues with the front end and are stumped. Ball joints look good and they found no play what so ever in the front end. They also stated everything they would have looked at, I replaced.
Post alignment and ballancing the issue almost all but went away, now after a week it is now coming back and starting to build back upto what it was.

Exact issue in detail. At 45-50 mpg the steering wheel starts to shake. At certain times it will get very violent.

Only items not replaced. Ball joints and control arm bushings.
NOTE: this thing is babied. It's like brand new underneith still. It has seen it's day on the trail, don't get me wrong. But at 57k on an 05 which spent most of it's life driving 1 mile to work and back, you can tell it's lived a fairly relaxed life so far.
This whole death wobble thing is very frustrating. Short of taking it to Central 4wd, I'm at a loss. I've had this thing to different shops, Les Schwab, Pep Boys ect. FYI, I'm no dummy, I make sure the guys working on the jeep, KNOW JEEPS. Then I discuss in detail what is going on and of coarse they've all seen it a million times. So far no one can find a solution to fix my rig.
GRRRRRRRRRRR. :brickwall: So please, another set of eyes never hurt, maybe you hold the key to fix my Jeep. :2thumbsup:
 
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#2 · (Edited)
I've had a similar problem with my '06 LJ (53K). I replaced the trackbar and TRE at the pitman arm, all other TREs seem good. That seemed to help, but I still got a couple occurances of DW. I got under there this last week and checked the torque on the CA bushings. All the lowers were fine, but both ends of all four upper CAs were not at the specified 55 ft/lb; see TJ Torque Specs and 2005 Jeep Torques. This seemed to help, I still get a slight shimmy at around 45 mph, but it hasn't turned into full DW since.

I'm just kinda keeping an eye on this, but I'm thinking the bushings may be shot from being loose, so I think new CAs, and bushings is next. I am also thinking of upgrading the steering to either the Crown or Currie system...when budget allows.

Good luck with yours...
 
#3 ·
Stock bushings in new conditions can still allow for death wobble if the oscillations of the tires are strong enough.

With 57k and some wheeling the bushings will have some wear. Combined with the condition of the tires/rims, its enough to get out of control.

Control arm bushings are the most over looked component by techs and front end guys. What they see as acceptable movement is correct for OEM conditions. Once you move to larger tires and shallow backspacing those conditions change.

Do a dry steer test and watch all the control arm bushings. Any notable deflection at all is an immediate sign that they are most likely allowing the axle movement that is required for death wobble to initiate.

Choice is yours. You can try to dial out the tires/rims and or replace them, or you can start upgrading the front suspension to better handle the increased stress of bigger tires/rims.

If your tires are still in relatively good condition, I would suggest looking at arms. At least its an upgrade, and not a grudge purchase.
 
#4 ·
Hmm, Ok see that is something I was wondering about. I had my daughter turning the wheel back and fourth and sure enough there is some side to side movement of the axle. The tech couldn't say if that was normal or not.
I think it is excessive IMO. I can see that it is moving on the frame end, which by the time that angle is at the axle it is very pronounced.
Hmm, maybe I'll just bite the bullet and change those tool. I guess it can't hurt. Then using the torque spec as was attached I'll tighten everything up.
 
#6 ·
Update to my death wobble

Background.
05 TJ with 57k miles. 2" budget boost lift and 33x12.5x15 since jeep was new in 05.
Out of no where it started getting death wobble.
Replaced the track bar> No help
Replaced the Steering Stab> No help
Said screw it and just went ahead and replaced the entire front steering components and put stock tires back on. Still had the issue.
Double checked Alignment and tire balance at local shop. Still had issues.

HERES the UPDATE:
The only thing left that we were all stuck on was the control arm bushings. So I bought the bushings and pressed them out and pressed the new ones in.
Installed the bolt but only partially tight, then set the jeep on the ground and torqued them down. Took it for a drive and guess what.
Still had some shimmy which if you hit a bump would become death wobble. :brickwall:
So then I took a step back and thought about what I had done to the jeep.
I installed a 1997 V8 Grand Cherokee tie rod. It's a large solid bar instead of the hollow 3' adjuster the wrangler comes with. Also the alignment shop couldn't get my steering wheel straight. So I decided to check my alignment my self. Pulled the wheels and using two pieces of flat bar, drilled a 1/2" hole in each one and bolted them to a wheel stud on each wheel.
Here is what I found.

:nono:
Measurement between plates bolted to wheel stud at rotor wheel mounting surface
Facing Front 60"
Facing Rear 60.5"
This seems that the wheels were toed out .5"
Then looking at the pitman arm/tie rod adjuster I found the problem! The Cherokee steering components are just slightly longer than the wrangler. I also have ES3096 at the drivers side knuckle and ES3096 at the pitman arm. The Tie rod of the pitman arm was contacting the linkage inside the adjuster, so you couldn't adjust it anymore.
I pulled the adjuster off and using my grinder simply ground down the end or front surface of the tie rod thread end and linkage end. Both had what looks like a slag line from the casting process on the ends. With grinding an 1/8" off of both I put it back together which now allowed me to adjust the steering wheel where it should be. Once I had that set I then set the toe by the adjuster on the tie rod.
I put it at 1/8" toe in. The shimmy is gone.
OH, ALSO, I have to appologize to those whom said to re-check the tire ballance. I stopped by the tire shop and had them re-check all four. Sure enough I watched the machine through the window and the guy had to move the weights on both sides of all 4 wheels. "stock wheels and tires". I'm not sure what that was about because the guy was really busy so I didn't get a chance to talk with him.
In the mean time I'm going to take the jeep down and have them just verify all the measurements on the alignment and explain to them what I found. It was partially my fault there so I can't blame them except the alignment guy should have told me he couldn't get it in spec. :confused:
Being as my wife has been driving the thing I never have a chance to notice when things go wrong. :wave:

FYI no shop I went to rented any type of tool to support the control arm while pressing out the bushings.
I had to shave a 2x4 down to slide inside the arm then use some backwoods engineering for the other part.
On the first arm I simply took a drill and drilled around the bolt center in the rubber. This allowed me to pop the bolt spacer out of the rubber and with it out of the way the rubber just popped out. Now I was left with the sleeve in the arm. Taking my air saw I carefully cut a slit all the way down and popped the bushing sleeve out. Then cut the sleeve into two pieces. With two halves of the sleeve I took one and stood it up next to my 2x4 to get the exact height I need to cut the sleeve down to. With the sleeve at the same thickness as the 2x4 I put the wood block into the control arm and placed the cut down sleeve on the outside of the arm. The sleeve supported the outer most part of the arm where it is very thin and the wood supported the inside of the arm. Using my harbor freight press, the other bushings popped right out, and using a thin coat of bearing grease they slide right back in like butter.
I think it would have been nice to make a tool out of aluminium if I was to do them again though.
 
#8 ·
I'm 99% sure at this point. My wife called me last night and said it had a shimmy again. However, I need to take a ride with her to see if what she is calling a shimmy is just steering wheel feed back. Going from a minivan that had no real steering feel to a jeep is like taking a step back in time. But I do want to take it down to have a shop confirm the alignment and give me a print out of what they found. The last shop is supposed to give a print out but did not supply it to me.
 
#10 ·
You missed the fundemental I tried to explain to you.

Let me put it this way,

How many times have you had a vehicle with bad tires, or a bad tire rod that commonly had a wheel shimmy at any given speed but it didnt progress into death wobble?

With that said, why would you think that changing out a tie rod that was causing a shimmy would fix your death wobble?

Until you eleminate the axles ability to move, the possibility for death wobble to initiate will not go away.

As you fix and replace things like tie rods and tires, you may reduce that frequency, but you only garruntee is to eliminate axle movement.

Until you do, the rest is just a roll of the dice.
 
#11 ·
bnine,
I'm not really sure what you are asking but I'll give you an update that the death wobble is still there. There is discussion that if you have a bad tierod you could have one wheel that is allowed side to side play from the other wheel, are you stating that this is not true? Are you saying a bad tie rod end that has slop in it does not matter? My understanding of steering geometry is that, more specifically on the jeep front end. The tierod is critical in keeping the 1/8" toe in, any play in a tierod end would allow the tires to toe out or in at random.
Quick recap. All front end parts are NEW. Tie rod ends, track bar, linkages, control arm bushings, steering stab. There is no movement in the balljoints and axles ect don't have any play.
Front end has been aligned and is in spec at 1/8" toe in.
Any bump and the front end shakes side to side, this would mean that it is a trackbar, bracketry or control arm issue in my book. But originally there was a bad tierod end on the front end. I just went ahead and replaced everything at the same time because I had the money and figured why not just do it.

Now, here is the thing since the shops can't seem to figure this out. I did find an oddity that 4 wheel parts confirmed is strange, stopped there this morning. The brand new NAPA track bar has movement of about a 1/4" each direction on the rubber end. But when you make a mark and measure the distance that the upper arms are flexing from the frame it translates to about 1" overall movement. What I mean by this, is the Rubber inside the trackbar end is flexing internally on it self. There isn't any movement on the bolt or the inner sleeve, it's completely solid. When turning the wheel from side to side you can see the rubber squish as the force of the steering is pushed on it.

Out of curiosity I went to napa and had them pull just the bushing that they carry which is NCP-274-9176. It is built completely different than of the bushing that is in the track bar I bought.

The track bar I have, has an outer sleeve and the inner bolt sleeve all vulcanized together then pressed into the track bar.

The NCP bushing has an outer sleeve with a thin Rubber, then another sleeve with a thin rubber then finally the bolt sleeve.
I'm going to swap out just this bushing and see what happens.
Not sure if this works, but here is the link to the bushing
if you go to napaonline.com then type in NCP 2749176 you will see what I mean.

Then look at the two track bars below. The top one is the cheap version, but it does not have the bushing as pictured, I think they mixed the two up, because the more expensive on does have the dual sleeve in it, but the cheap version does not.
MRC DS1235
NCP 2724194
 
#12 ·
I just put in one of the "expensive" NAPA trackbars, with the dual layer bushing you described, and don't have any play in the bushing. NAPA claims that their "premium" steering components are made by MOOG. If you look at the MOOG trackbar, it does have the dual layer rubber bushing just like the bushing you mentioned.

Did you buy the expensive one but receive the cheap one? If so, you should try yo get it exchanged...

To try to help explain what bnine is saying, my take is that the whole axle has to move to be true DW. Have you ever heard of a vehicle with IFS getting DW? I've driven a vehicle that had severely worn suspension parts, a steering knuckle that was wallowed out, bad ball joints, and TREs that could be separated by hand, and it didn't have DW. Severe alignment issues but no DW. This is beause the axle was not a solid unit which kept any wheel shimmy from becoming the harmonic axle movement we call DW.
 
#13 ·
To try to help explain what bnine is saying, my take is that the whole axle has to move to be true DW. Have you ever heard of a vehicle with IFS getting DW? I've driven a vehicle that had severely worn suspension parts, a steering knuckle that was wallowed out, bad ball joints, and TREs that could be separated by hand, and it didn't have DW. Severe alignment issues but no DW. This is beause the axle was not a solid unit which kept any wheel shimmy from becoming the harmonic axle movement we call DW.
For what Bnine said and what you explained, Totally agree, I have never had an issue with DW on my IFS gm truck which I bought used, and had totally worn front parts.

Back to the track bar. I checked my reciept, looks like I bought the cheap one. I pressed the MOOG style bushing in last night. The issue is all but gone, except there is a major problem.
When I got the first track bar from NAPA I noticed it was loose on the factory Jeep Bolt. So I drilled out to a 12mm Bolt size. The Track bar bushing was easily drilled out as well. When I went to put the new MOOG bushing in, it must be a hardend bolt sleeve because my drill bits wouldn't even touch it. I couldn't drill it out. I was in a pinch last night to get it together so I had to throw a 10mm bolt in there. I tightened the crap out of it but it has some play in it. However now driving, the axle doesn't feel like it's going to come out from under it. But you can still feel it jump when you hit a bump. Meaning the axle has some side play and starts to shimmy.
 
#15 ·
Moogs TB bushing Kit (K3176) accepts a 3/8's IIRC.

Weld a grade 3/8 washer, or drill a small peice of plate and weld it to the fron the of the bracket to freshen up the hole. Make sure the bolt is installed before tacking to ensure proper alignment.

Another option or two that should help.

Once you have your track bar in order, if you still have a slight waggle during bumps between 35-50mph, start looking at bushing on the control arms.
 
#16 ·
Yea, I was able to drill the new track bar out to 7/16". The new moog track bar didn't help at all. I still have a DW at 60-65mph.
So I'm going to just try replacing all my rear bushings and see what happens. I also found yesterday that the rear sway bar bushings have tons of slop in them. When shaking the vehicle left to right the sway bar moves a good 1/4 before the bushing catches the bolt. It's bad enough that I think I could sleeve it, but i'm going to see if I can find off the shelf bushings for them. Pepboys sells a kit, but it's the entire link.. I don't really see the point of buying a link if I can just replace the bushings. What is with our throw away society these days?
 
#17 ·
You need to get over to somewhere that can properly diagnose.

Have you talked to Blaine? He at least could get you in the right direction with a consultation, and some instruction on how to properly diagnose your front end.

It sounds to me like you are still a bit unsure about the whole process.
 
#18 ·
Here is something that is commonly missed with the steering. Have you tried to tighten the steering box bolt located on top of the steering gear box. Sometimes when you put oversized tires on there it backs off. This is because it does not have a lock washer just a self locking nut that is not very effective. I had this problem and it cured it for me.
 
#19 ·
If that cured actual death wobble on your rig, it is more then likely you have a front end that is very close to being compromised enough that it will return very shortly.

Any time death wobble is eliminated by minor adjust like the one above, it is pretty a sure sign of delaying the inevitable.

I would keep a close eye on your front end in the near future.
 
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