About a year or so ago I put a Crown steering kit on my 98 4.0. Probably about 6K miles or so later the passenger side tie rod is worn out and the drag link tie rod is starting to show play. Enough to cause the dreaded death wobble with no lift. I have read somewhere that the Crown kit is sourced off the 96 V8 and has bigger parts. Looking through the Moog Catalog I see that they are different although they don't seem to list what is different. So I guess my questions are these:
I greased the tie rods with Hi Temp moly disc brake grease when I put the crown unit on, plus I replaced the boots with the poly units since I read that the stock ones tear. I don't mind spending the extra money if it will stop the DW, When I put the Crown unit on, I also put a Monroe Magnum damper at the same time. Funny thing is, after the first time it did the dance of death, I took it to a garage I use when I'm too busy at work to look at the Jeep. They put upper and lower control arms on, a new track bar and a pitman arm. I thought it was fixed, but 90% of the driving is in the city.
Decided to take a trip upstate, was fine until I hit the "right bump" and again with the death wobble. Doesn't bother me as much as the wife, scares the crap out of her. She wants to just get out of the car and walk home. The tires were worn but not under inspection limit. So I spent the $650 for some new GoodYears and a alignment at Mavis. Told them about the death wobble, etc. The did it all and told me all was tight, everything was fine, have a nice day. Got about 20 miles down the road, hit another of the "right bumps" and again wobble city. I'm just glad the people behind me didn't plow into me when I threw out the anchor to stop the wobble.
Took it back to the original guy and they looked it over and said all was tight, probably was caused by body flex due to rusting from the salt bath it gets in the winter. After that I figured it was about time to put the ole Jeep down. After a few back and forth PMs with Uni, I took it to work and checked under it to see what is moving and could I possibly do a little fab work to repair the control arm mounts that were supposedly flexing. To my surprise, what I found was the passenger tie rod moving quite a bit and the tie rod attached to the tie rod shaft from the pitman arm was moving about half that much. Didn't see any movement on the control arm mounts. Slight movement on the Track bar bushing end, but I've read that the bushings are a little too soft. I put an oversize bolt in there to take up the frame slop so that's nice and tight. So two guys, one twice, looked at it and didn't see the tie rod moving. I'm blind and I could see it easily. I would assume that when it's up on a lift and you grab the wheel and shake it, that you would feel that play. Oh well, guess I will just have to make the time to work on it myself, hard to do during the season though.
Sorry for the novel.
- Are the Moog parts better than the Crown parts?
- will the 1996 V8 version fit the 4.0?
- Is it worth spending another $150 for the Moog? It's about $172 for Crown vs $320 for the Moog parts.
I greased the tie rods with Hi Temp moly disc brake grease when I put the crown unit on, plus I replaced the boots with the poly units since I read that the stock ones tear. I don't mind spending the extra money if it will stop the DW, When I put the Crown unit on, I also put a Monroe Magnum damper at the same time. Funny thing is, after the first time it did the dance of death, I took it to a garage I use when I'm too busy at work to look at the Jeep. They put upper and lower control arms on, a new track bar and a pitman arm. I thought it was fixed, but 90% of the driving is in the city.
Decided to take a trip upstate, was fine until I hit the "right bump" and again with the death wobble. Doesn't bother me as much as the wife, scares the crap out of her. She wants to just get out of the car and walk home. The tires were worn but not under inspection limit. So I spent the $650 for some new GoodYears and a alignment at Mavis. Told them about the death wobble, etc. The did it all and told me all was tight, everything was fine, have a nice day. Got about 20 miles down the road, hit another of the "right bumps" and again wobble city. I'm just glad the people behind me didn't plow into me when I threw out the anchor to stop the wobble.
Took it back to the original guy and they looked it over and said all was tight, probably was caused by body flex due to rusting from the salt bath it gets in the winter. After that I figured it was about time to put the ole Jeep down. After a few back and forth PMs with Uni, I took it to work and checked under it to see what is moving and could I possibly do a little fab work to repair the control arm mounts that were supposedly flexing. To my surprise, what I found was the passenger tie rod moving quite a bit and the tie rod attached to the tie rod shaft from the pitman arm was moving about half that much. Didn't see any movement on the control arm mounts. Slight movement on the Track bar bushing end, but I've read that the bushings are a little too soft. I put an oversize bolt in there to take up the frame slop so that's nice and tight. So two guys, one twice, looked at it and didn't see the tie rod moving. I'm blind and I could see it easily. I would assume that when it's up on a lift and you grab the wheel and shake it, that you would feel that play. Oh well, guess I will just have to make the time to work on it myself, hard to do during the season though.
Sorry for the novel.
