Another Death wobble conflicting info Clayton lift

[drew0622]

If you have death wobble, I would fix that. Adjusting caster for more or less caster is not going to fix death wobble. It may affect how often you get death wobble, but it is generally not the source of death wobble unless your caster is so low it simply is not stable.
I would for sure set up caster and toe correctly, as well as make sure your tires are balanced and at a good air pressure. But if you have death wobble I would look for the play in the system that allows death wobble to occur.

Speed related wobbles are a different story, and are generally rotational balance related.

Agreed. Feels like a harmoni

Are you getting actual death wobble, or vibration/shake from unbalanced tires?

Death wobble is very apparent, its not just vibration felt while driving, it's violent shaking of the front wheels to where you need to come to a stop, or almost a stop.

Some shaking while driving felt in the legs/seat, that changes with vehicle speed is going to be tire balance, and when talking large tires sometimes you just can't get all of it out.

Also, theres no specific type of weight for larger tires, so your stick on "regular weights" are fine. Some shops will add balancing beds to large tires. Being that you balanced at Discount they likely did a static balance and just guessed where the heavy spots were. Find a shop that can road force blanace, those machines measure everything, find high and low spots, heavy spots etc. and can more accurately place weights.

Some tire brands and models can be quite difficult to balance, one of which are Mickeys. I had my Mickeys balanced three times before they finally felt ok, and we ended up doing a warranty claim on two of them because they wouldn't balance at all. If the tires are cold I still feel a little shake until the carcass warms up.

I believe its unbalanced tires......jeep is smooth at take off.....once I hit 50+mph, I get a vibrations, steering wheel rotates back and forth about .5-1.00" each way.....once I get into the 70's it feels better. I also feel it in my seat/legs from the rear. Also get slight bump steer at 50 mph. I'm running 37 Mickeys.

My 4x4 shop, who installed my kit is doing a road force balance for me. They are also putting the owners 37's (wheels and tires) on my rig to test.

Clayton track bars front and rear were installed with kit.

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[jsturges18]

Todya I found the front lower control arm rear bolt not torqued to spec. Lower drag link bolt also not torqued to spec. Took care of those and then replace the trackbar lower bolt with a standard size bolt to fill the hole more. Nothing has changed driving wise. Will try highway shortly and I plan on adjusting my upper
Control arms for appropriate caster

 

[jsturges18]

Another update. Highway drive was successful. The catch is this was at Clayton’s recommended 20 1/4inch length on the upper control arms. After the successful drive I figured I’d adjust the arms to 19 3/4inch as the shop set it for proper caster and BAM, low speed wobble (haven’t gone fast for DW) is back in full effect.

Very lost for thoughts. Gonna try to call Clayton tomorrow and see if anyone can give a good explanation. Saturday I’ll put the arms back to 20 1/4inch.

 

[GuzziMoto]

Strange. A shorter upper arm is more caster. More caster doesn't normally make it less stable, it makes it more stable.

 

[JTdiRtyD]

Strange. A shorter upper arm is more caster. More caster doesn't normally make it less stable, it makes it more stable.

Wouldnt a shorter upper be less caster?

 

[JT1]

Wouldnt a shorter upper be less caster?

No, a shorter upper arm rotates the pinion (facing the transfer case) toward the ground. This increased positive caster.

Ignore the labeling, but the drawing is perfect to visualize

 

[GuzziMoto]

Wouldnt a shorter upper be less caster?

No, a shorter upper arm rotates the axle back, adding caster. A shorter lower arm would reduce caster.
If you have a longer lower arm it adds caster, but the same basic effect can be had by a shorter upper arm. The upper and lower arms work opposite when it comes to adding or reducing caster. A shorter upper arm adds caster, same as a longer lower arm.

 

[JTdiRtyD]

No, a shorter upper arm rotates the pinion (facing the transfer case) toward the ground. This increased positive caster.

Ignore the labeling, but the drawing is perfect to visualize

No, a shorter upper arm rotates the axle back, adding caster. A shorter lower arm would reduce caster.
If you have a longer lower arm it adds caster, but the same basic effect can be had by a shorter upper arm. The upper and lower arms work opposite when it comes to adding or reducing caster. A shorter upper arm adds caster, same as a longer lower arm.

Thanks. I was trying to visualize this in my head earlier, but now that this photo was posted I can't even visualize what I was incorrectly visualizing earlier.

It's friday, it's morning...

 

[jsturges18]

Yea very odd. Funny I took those brackets off when I installed my Clayton kit. Clayton didn’t seem to care too much about them when I talked to customer service

 

[Andy29847]

Sometimes wobble is caused by wheels mounted so that they are out of round. Stock wheels are hub centric to avoid this issue. Aftermarket wheels are often made for multiple vehicles and the center hole may be larger than your hub. These wheels are designed to be lug centric. The problem with that is if you mount your wheel and tire, start one lug nut, and tighten that first lug nut, you can lock the wheel in an out-of round condition.

There is a procedure for mounting lug centric wheels:



Here is how you should mount your aftermarket rims, after a rotation, new rims or tires, or a good old cleaning

1. Jack car up and secure it with a jack stand (Safety First )
2. Loosen all lug nuts and either put on rim, rotate or whatever the hell you need to do.
3. Thread on all the lug nuts, but DO NOT tighten to where you can not move them.
4. Rotate the tire/rim until one of the 5 lugs is at the 12 o clock position.
5. Tighten lug nut with thumb and forefinger to the point that you can not do it anymore.
6. Rotate the tire clockwise, skipping one lug nut, and putting the 3rd nut in the 12 o clock position. Tighten this one the same as Step 5. Repeat until all 5 are finger tight.
7. Let the truck down to where the tires barely touch the ground. Use a wrench and tighten all bolts with about 25% of your strength. Just enough to grab.
8. I then let the truck down all the way and torqued the bolts to 130 (Gladiator specs).
9. Repeat all steps above for the rest of the truck and throw a couple of beers in there

 

[Brian2o0o]

Another easy check is the four bolts holding your steering box to the frame. I was having an off and on violent wobble from hitting small bumps that I couldn’t track down because it wasn’t consistent. Finally read a post about someone having similar issues and their steering box bolts being loose. I checked mine and none of them were even close to proper torque specs (99ftlb). I got about a half turn on all four bolts. As soon as I torqued them down it was night and day difference in the steering and haven’t had an issue since.

 

[Bandit’s Lair]

@Andy29847 Isnt Gladiator Torque spec for lugs 130? Or am I totally off there? That’s what I’ve been torquing all of mine to since I’ve owned it.

 

[Andy29847]

@Andy29847 Isnt Gladiator Torque spec for lugs 130? Or am I totally off there? That’s what I’ve been torquing all of mine to since I’ve owned it.

Good catch. The info was originally written for old Jeeps with smaller lug nuts. 130 ft/pounds is correct for Gladiators.

 

[jsturges18]

Another easy check is the four bolts holding your steering box to the frame. I was having an off and on violent wobble from hitting small bumps that I couldn’t track down because it wasn’t consistent. Finally read a post about someone having similar issues and their steering box bolts being loose. I checked mine and none of them were even close to proper torque specs (99ftlb). I got about a half turn on all four bolts. As soon as I torqued them down it was night and day difference in the steering and haven’t had an issue since.

Thank you! I’ll try this today

 

[jsturges18]

Another easy check is the four bolts holding your steering box to the frame. I was having an off and on violent wobble from hitting small bumps that I couldn’t track down because it wasn’t consistent. Finally read a post about someone having similar issues and their steering box bolts being loose. I checked mine and none of them were even close to proper torque specs (99ftlb). I got about a half turn on all four bolts. As soon as I torqued them down it was night and day difference in the steering and haven’t had an issue since.

Sometimes wobble is caused by wheels mounted so that they are out of round. Stock wheels are hub centric to avoid this issue. Aftermarket wheels are often made for multiple vehicles and the center hole may be larger than your hub. These wheels are designed to be lug centric. The problem with that is if you mount your wheel and tire, start one lug nut, and tighten that first lug nut, you can lock the wheel in an out-of round condition.

There is a procedure for mounting lug centric wheels:



Here is how you should mount your aftermarket rims, after a rotation, new rims or tires, or a good old cleaning

1. Jack car up and secure it with a jack stand (Safety First )
2. Loosen all lug nuts and either put on rim, rotate or whatever the hell you need to do.
3. Thread on all the lug nuts, but DO NOT tighten to where you can not move them.
4. Rotate the tire/rim until one of the 5 lugs is at the 12 o clock position.
5. Tighten lug nut with thumb and forefinger to the point that you can not do it anymore.
6. Rotate the tire clockwise, skipping one lug nut, and putting the 3rd nut in the 12 o clock position. Tighten this one the same as Step 5. Repeat until all 5 are finger tight.
7. Let the truck down to where the tires barely touch the ground. Use a wrench and tighten all bolts with about 25% of your strength. Just enough to grab.
8. I then let the truck down all the way and torqued the bolts to 130 (Gladiator specs).
9. Repeat all steps above for the rest of the truck and throw a couple of beers in there

Thank you, I’ll be doing this procedure today! My wheels hub bore match the jeeps according to the website.

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