Death Wobble Drastically Worse After Replacing Parts. Have questions

[Lunentucker]

A good way to check ball joints

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[arosen1997]

Was it the bolts that connect the box to the frame? My pitman arm to drag link was definitely not to spec., maybe like 30 ft-lbs. But I haven't checked the steering box to frame.

Now that I search for the steering box I see a lot of people talking about the steering box bolts and the recall. certainly will look at it tomorrow.

Yeah the bolts that attach the box to the frame.

 

[Escape.idiocracy]

Free check- pull your steering damper off completely.

I just found ours to have the tie rod end sides bushing worn out causing oscillation… this would eventually lead to DW….

 

[Minty JL]

Ball joints are often overlooked when people say "I checked everything".
You will definitely see them wear out prematurely if you have moved well out of factory specs on your front end geometry with lift, bigger tires, and offset.

@Metalcloak extended their 10% off and free shipping through the weekend.
https://metalcloak.com/jl-wrangler-ball-joint-set-upgrade-kit.html

Yeah the uneven wear on the passenger side tire only, inclines me to believe ball joints

 

[Wolf Island Diver]

I’m still stuck on having a little wobble and replacing your entire set of steering arms. That doesn’t make sense to me. But, hey, upgraded parts. But the wobble radically increasing after installing this should be an indication something was done wrong.

First the truck needs to be aligned on GP. You’ve made major changes to the whole front end and lifted it. Get it aligned. If your tires are worn unevenly, I’d check their balance too. Next, if indeed everything was torqued then I would start looking at the bolts and mounts for all this stuff. Are bolts bottoming out prior to compressing the mounting points? Is there any indication that the track bar, in particular, but not exclusively, is or was moving back and forth at the axle end?

Definitely check the ball joints, but lots of folks are running slightly worn ball joints without death wobble. I need to check mine myself. I’d be surprised if at 45k miles on 37s mine are a little loose at this point. But outside of finding something clearing broken or worn out, I would stop throwing parts at it and figure out what was popping and why the steering force required is different left to right. Of course, now you’ve got the additional variable of a lots of aftermarket parts, so you’ve got to consider that your geometry is off from stock spec and/or not installed properly. It’s really easy to screw up solid axle steering geometry with poorly adjusted steering components.

The tire wear can be from ball joints but it also can be from bad shocks, uneven inflation, poor rotation practices, poor balance or shit tires. In my experience when a large off road tire starts to wear unevenly from its mates, it can run away with itself and it’s hard to correct even with rotation. I’ve had to shave tires down to make them serviceable.

I’d also check out the front axle u-joints for binding or looseness and FAD and make sure all of that’s kosher and make sure the steering box is tightened to the frame.

 

[SoK66]

First. Yes, I've read a million threads, youtube videos, scrolls, articles, visited an ancient monk at the top of a mountain. Thought I had this handled and it's worse.

Tl;DR: Massive death wobble after replacing front steering parts

Short Description / symptoms:
- 35" RT tires w/ 2.5" front spacer lift ( comes with Shock spacer and longer sway bar links )
- Minor wobble at freeway speeds slowly was getting worse
- The front passenger tire developed really bad tire wear, the rest looked ok. I did rotate them
-Developed a clunk in the steering when turning
- when I would turn the wheel from left to right you could tell something wasn't right, there was a slight hesitation/binding as you would turn the wheel. I got under it and couldn't see any issue.
- At low speed, parking lots speeds the amount of force to turn the wheel left vs right was pretty different. On the freeway I couldn't tell difference. but it would wonder a little
- After reading up I learned stock end links are made of wet paper and moon dust
- Ordered Steer Smarts Yeti XL drag link and Tie Rod. RSO traction bar


Replaced all the below mentioned items and things went from bad to worse. Took it out for a test drive and death wobble nearly turned literal. The wobble started at about 35 and got so bad the car started moving into the other lane! I have to slam on the brakes, thankfully no other cars were near me.


Bought and replaced:
---- Drag Link
---- Tie Rod
---- Traction bar (because of the 2.5 front lift)
---- Mopar 2.5" lower control arms (because of the 2.5 front lift)
---- steering damper ( not currently installed )


Torqued:
- Yes everything has been torqued to spec or slightly above it, twice. Once I had everything together and torqued I torqued everything again.
- everything was tightened and torqued at resting height resting on the axle or wheels.

Toe and Alignment:
- I adjusted the Toe as straight as I can get it before I went for a test drive, I wanted everything to settle before adjusting it again. Was going to try to get it within that "1/8"" toe in mark and get it aligned later

Description after installing all parts:
First round I installed only the drag link. Didn't fix the issue and the tie rod didn't show up in time. This week I installed the tie rod and traction bar. Adjusted the toe to as close to zero as I could and went for a test drive. Overall if seems better a low speed, the above mentioned low speed symptoms seemed to be gone. But as I sped up the wobble started and got worse and worse to a very uncontrollable level. Now, because of poor description for a product I don't have the steering damper installed it's possible it was calming the symptoms I was getting before.

Now, I'm thinking three things:
- Steering box as left the building ( when the wobble got REALLY bad it wasn't trying to rip the wheel out of my hands, but you could certainly feel it in the wheel )
- Ball joints are shot ( strong contender but since the low speed symptoms are gone it has me questioning if this is the issue )
- Wheels are so unbalanced and the toe is far out it's making things worse. I have no idea what the toe was at before replacing parts.

Looking for feedback on this.

Thank you

Death Wobble 101: The wheels & tires MUST run true and be properly balanced. If not checked and repaired first anything else you do is a waste of time. Test the rims with a dial indicator for true running mounted on the vehicle. Test for runout (radial) and wobble (axial). If either is off go no further. Issues also arise from lug centered vs hub centered wheels. Running off true.

if the rims test ok then the tires need to be checked for balance, out of round, etc. any of the above will activate every tolerance in the steering system $ suspension, the vibration and wobble has to go somewhere.

 

[pcrawfordpt]

Check the ball joints and make sure everything up front is torqued to spec. Also make sure your best balanced tires are up front for testing. If that all checks out, maybe the hole for the track bar at the frame got wallowed out…common if DW has gone on a while. Replace the factory bolt/nut with a 9/16 grade 8. These are slightly thicker and can fill up the wallowed out hole. Lastly, you do need a dampener to calm the forces leading up the DW. True only replacing the dampener will mask the real issue, but if everything checks out and you still have it, you need to upgrade the dampener. I had to do this with my 37’s and it solved the issue. I upgraded to a Bilstein gas stabilizer…smooth as butter now. Be advised that a gas dampener/stabilizer will always be trying to lengthen and slight pressure is needed on the wheel to keep it going straight down the road.

 

[Reddout99]

I started to develop some steering wobble at around 40-45 mph after having my tires rotated by Discount Tire, where they rebalance them as well as rotate. I took it to another shop to have them road-force balanced and the wobble was cured. May be be overly simplistic but i never had any issues prior to the rotation at DT

 

[JoeyD]

Good to know. Wouldn't surprise me if my tires weren't balanced well. They have ~15K on them but the guy who installed the tires was a bit of a knucklehead.

My hope was to get it to a shop and have them rebalance and align everything. after yesterday's test drive I'm not sure I can make it. But the steering stabilizer mount comes in today so hopefully that will calm it down enough to get it to a shop

I started to develop some steering wobble at around 40-45 mph after having my tires rotated by Discount Tire, where they rebalance them as well as rotate. I took it to another shop to have them road-force balanced and the wobble was cured. May be be overly simplistic but i never had any issues prior to the rotation at DT

 

[REDBEAST]

Check the ball joints.
Check the steering gearbox bolts.
Check the Pitman arm nut.

Toe out slightly. 1/16" on the edge of the rims or 1/8" at the edge of the tires.

More reading and videos.

Death Wobble, DW, Death Wobble, DW, Death Wobble, Shimmy, Wander, Drift, Bump Steer | Jeep Gladiator Forum - JeepGladiatorForum.com

And check the nut behind the wheel.

 

[tysongladiator]

Was it the bolts that connect the box to the frame? My pitman arm to drag link was definitely not to spec., maybe like 30 ft-lbs. But I haven't checked the steering box to frame.

Now that I search for the steering box I see a lot of people talking about the steering box bolts and the recall. certainly will look at it tomorrow.

I did a video on my YT channel about 3yrs ago about the pitman arm nut. It will cause swaying if it's not torqued properly. The pitman arm nut has to be 184 ft-lbs with loctite. Also, did you inspect the track bar bolts and bracket when you installed your new track bar? A wallowed out bolt hole or bolt will cause death wobble as well.

 

[WILDHOBO]

First. Yes, I've read a million threads, youtube videos, scrolls, articles, visited an ancient monk at the top of a mountain. Thought I had this handled and it's worse.

Tl;DR: Massive death wobble after replacing front steering parts

Short Description / symptoms:
- 35" RT tires w/ 2.5" front spacer lift ( comes with Shock spacer and longer sway bar links )
- Minor wobble at freeway speeds slowly was getting worse
- The front passenger tire developed really bad tire wear, the rest looked ok. I did rotate them
-Developed a clunk in the steering when turning
- when I would turn the wheel from left to right you could tell something wasn't right, there was a slight hesitation/binding as you would turn the wheel. I got under it and couldn't see any issue.
- At low speed, parking lots speeds the amount of force to turn the wheel left vs right was pretty different. On the freeway I couldn't tell difference. but it would wonder a little
- After reading up I learned stock end links are made of wet paper and moon dust
- Ordered Steer Smarts Yeti XL drag link and Tie Rod. RSO traction bar


Replaced all the below mentioned items and things went from bad to worse. Took it out for a test drive and death wobble nearly turned literal. The wobble started at about 35 and got so bad the car started moving into the other lane! I have to slam on the brakes, thankfully no other cars were near me.


Bought and replaced:
---- Drag Link
---- Tie Rod
---- Traction bar (because of the 2.5 front lift)
---- Mopar 2.5" lower control arms (because of the 2.5 front lift)
---- steering damper ( not currently installed )


Torqued:
- Yes everything has been torqued to spec or slightly above it, twice. Once I had everything together and torqued I torqued everything again.
- everything was tightened and torqued at resting height resting on the axle or wheels.

Toe and Alignment:
- I adjusted the Toe as straight as I can get it before I went for a test drive, I wanted everything to settle before adjusting it again. Was going to try to get it within that "1/8"" toe in mark and get it aligned later

Description after installing all parts:
First round I installed only the drag link. Didn't fix the issue and the tie rod didn't show up in time. This week I installed the tie rod and traction bar. Adjusted the toe to as close to zero as I could and went for a test drive. Overall if seems better a low speed, the above mentioned low speed symptoms seemed to be gone. But as I sped up the wobble started and got worse and worse to a very uncontrollable level. Now, because of poor description for a product I don't have the steering damper installed it's possible it was calming the symptoms I was getting before.

Now, I'm thinking three things:
- Steering box as left the building ( when the wobble got REALLY bad it wasn't trying to rip the wheel out of my hands, but you could certainly feel it in the wheel )
- Ball joints are shot ( strong contender but since the low speed symptoms are gone it has me questioning if this is the issue )
- Wheels are so unbalanced and the toe is far out it's making things worse. I have no idea what the toe was at before replacing parts.

Looking for feedback on this.

Thank you

I only have one question, if you changed your track bar mounting, and still have a bottom connection drag link setup, is your track bar parallel to your drag link?

 

[JoeyD]

Not sure what you are getting at here. I changed the track bar, not the mounting. I changed the stabilizer mount. I didn't do a top mount because I only have a 2.5 lift in the front. Every website says 4+ to go to top mount.

I know there is a correction bracket as well, but from what I could tell it's not needed with a 2.5.

I only have one question, if you changed your track bar mounting, and still have a bottom connection drag link setup, is your track bar parallel to your drag link?

 

[JoeyD]

Oh we know that nut is loose.

And check the nut behind the wheel.

 

[WILDHOBO]

Not sure what you are getting at here. I changed the track bar, not the mounting. I changed the stabilizer mount. I didn't do a top mount because I only have a 2.5 lift in the front. Every website says 4+ to go to top mount.

I know there is a correction bracket as well, but from what I could tell it's not needed with a 2.5.

Some people have relocated their track bar mount on the axle side, and left the drag link on bottom. That takes them out of parallel and can create death wobble. Sounds like yours is parallel though.

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