Death Wobble at 14k miles

[LouisvEarlleJT]

Shot control arm bushings can also cause it. If you’ve ruled out all the obvious things then that may be it. Usually would take many many more miles for those to go but if the PO did something dumb I could see it happening.

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[Mezak]

32 psi max

 

[Jteakus]

Rotate your tires front to rear (with a cross if you wish). See if that helps. If it does, rebalance the tires.

 

[LHarrison72]

Hello everyone,

After reading everything I could and watching many videos, I thought it was time to post my question here.

I purchased a 2021 JTR 3.6 a few months ago. It had a dealer installed Mopar lift and almost new 37in BFG K02s. It has been a lot of fun but I have had intermittent issues with death wobble and cannot figure out the cause. I usually experience issues between 45-55mph on a gentle curve after hitting a bump in the road. I always have the sensation that it's coming from the right front but I know that feelings can be deceiving with a solid axle. All the tires are equal in pressure (36 in the front and 38 in the rear), I had the tires balanced AND rotated, got a professional alignment, and have torqued up everything that YouTube says I should, paying close attention to the track bar and tie rod. The caster angle is 6 degrees on both sides. I have very slight play to the track bar and tie rod but they do not feel loose, just move maybe 1/32 or 1/16 of an inch when they are rotated. Any thoughts?

The previous owner never took the rig off roading and I believe them as there was no evidence anywhere that it had been on more than a dirt road. I have taken the truck off roading a handful of times but have only done slow rock crawling a few times. I have overall treated it very gently.

Get yourself the Steer Smart Yeti XD sector shaft and a new steering stabilizer damper. Also doesn’t hurt to check all your bushings for ware and tear.

 

[Gvsukids]

Get yourself the Steer Smart Yeti XD sector shaft and a new steering stabilizer damper. Also doesn’t hurt to check all your bushings for ware and tear.

Wont those just mask the problem?

 

[Rockaholic]

These are some great suggestions guys. I'm going to go through things again this weekend and see what I can come up with.

 

[Bbannongmu]

I spent a few hours under it a few days ago and tried the dry steering test. Nothing jumped out. I am admittedly a newby when it comes to Jeeps but still, there wasn't a smoking gun. I felt every joint that I could.

You may never have a smoking gun with DW. Torquing all the bolts to spec is very important. This is a great checklist https://www.ironrockoffroad.com/Merchant2/DeathWobbleChecklist.pdf

 

[Stormtroopin]

Seriously had this issue for the past two weeks and I had the BFG ko2s rebalanced 3 times finally went with beads and so far so good, it was definitely the tires being out of balance but I also got a new stabilizer because my stock one was at 30000 miles.

 

[Bbannongmu]

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[Wheelin98TJ]

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Control arms should be on that list.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Rotate your tires front to rear (with a cross if you wish). See if that helps. If it does, rebalance the tires.

road force balancing........ I had 3 shops miss a bent wheel on my car! I took it to a decades old, old-school axle shop - they said it was fine.
Finally after spending a ton of time one day, dial indicators and more, and taking the wheels off to have them CNC refinished, we found a wheel was slightly egg-shaped.
3 wheel balances in different shops - all said "the wheels are perfect, no runout at all.
I have little faith in so many shops............

After the wheel fix, and new tires, I can now take that car to speeds that would scare any other AMC Eagle owner (and likely shouldn't ever be done with such a car!!)

My point is - these days they just don't look beyond the balancer screen or even try to troubleshoot.

Eagles have the steering dampener on them and I could never figure out why. Even to this day, I don't see the reason for it. All I can figure is that with the steering knuckle design, the scrub radius is likely way out there. The front tires swing wide on turns due to the fact they had limited spaced for the CV joint in the axle and had to fit it right where the "king pin line" would be if you drew a line between upper and lower ball joints. The front wheels on that car are basically Jeep wheels. I'll have to calculate the scrub radius on my SX4 one of these days - it might explain the need for that dampener on an IFS 4x4.

 

[Bbannongmu]

Control arms should be on that list.

Agree. That was the source of mine. I prefer the iron rock checklist.

 

[LHarrison72]

Wont those just mask the problem?

In my opinion this will strengthen the problem. Weak steering boxes, and this will give your steering and track bar something to bite to and be more stable when hitting the bumps and such that usually kick off death wobble.
As soon as I experience death wobble on my new Mojave at the time, I went and did a ton of research and this was the solution. Also having the correct caster.

 

[BearFootSam]

K02's are heavy and have been prone to imbalance in my experience. 37" K02's are going to amplify any looseness or instability.

 

[Gizmo]

Thats a broad statement about the 37" KO2s..... The "C" rated one for the Raptor is only slightly heavier than a 35" tire .

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