Death wobble in Gladiator

[MarkN]

Well its starting. Coming to work today and hit a familiar bump in the road, caused the wobble to start. I had to come to a complete stop. This is the same spot in the road that triggered the DW in my Wrangler. I have the Mopar lift and 35” BFG KO2 s. The lift was installed in June and the tires in Aug. has anyone else experienced the DW on a Gladiator? Any suggestions on a good permanent fix? I had Moog ball. Joints installed on the Wrangler and an adjustable tie rod. The tightened the front end. But the DW came back a year later

Mark

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[Mister Lamb]

An upgraded track bar (Synergy makes an adjustable one) that handles flexing better than the rigid stock track bar.

Synergy also sells an upgraded suspension hardware kit for heavier duty nuts/bolts.

https://www.synergymfg.com/synergy-jeep-jt-control-arm-bolt-kit.html

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Well its starting. Coming to work today and hit a familiar bump in the road, caused the wobble to start. I had to come to a complete stop. This is the same spot in the road that triggered the DW in my Wrangler. I have the Mopar lift and 35” BFG KO2 s. The lift was installed in June and the tires in Aug. has anyone else experienced the DW on a Gladiator? Any suggestions on a good permanent fix? I had Moog ball. Joints installed on the Wrangler and an adjustable tie rod. The tightened the front end. But the DW came back a year later

Mark

Did you do a search? There's many threads, hundreds of posts. (and almost as many reasons for the cause)

An upgraded track bar (Synergy makes an adjustable one) that handles flexing better than the rigid stock track bar.

Synergy also sells an upgraded suspension hardware kit for heavier duty nuts/bolts.

I have a good description with a complex drawing that shows a typical reason for DW after a lift and you just touched on it.
The problem is FLEXING of the stock parts - when they flex it's like a guitar string, It's flexed, springs back the other way, flexed again by the wobbling of the wheel, etc.
Scrub radius is all f'd up and the drag link and track bar flex. Take out that flex and you help.

Lifts and tire/wheel changes take these out of the engineering design. They are now outside of the design parameters and the ability of stock parts to handle the new stresses introduced.

 

[MarkN]

Did you do a search? There's many threads, hundreds of posts. (and almost as many reasons for the cause)



I have a good description with a complex drawing that shows a typical reason for DW after a lift and you just touched on it.
The problem is FLEXING of the stock parts - when they flex it's like a guitar string, It's flexed, springs back the other way, flexed again by the wobbling of the wheel, etc.
Scrub radius is all f'd up and the drag link and track bar flex. Take out that flex and you help.

Lifts and tire/wheel changes take these out of the engineering design. They are now outside of the design parameters and the ability of stock parts to handle the new stresses introduced.

Thanks guys for the quick response. I forgot to mention that I do have the Synergy track bar in place. I ll start reading the other posts when I get off work.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

It'll take you a few hours, LOL
Seriously - there are many causes, and it's not just Jeeps. Ford and others have had issues since the time I was born decades, eons, ago.
Causes can be loose parts, worn parts, fasteners (bolts and nuts) not being tight - torqued to specs, flexing of things due to the extra weight and load of larger tires, flexing due to a lift causing things to be compressed less than straight-on (due to the increased angles) and I have suspected that at times, some parts are being changed out, lifts installed, spacers, springs and so on, and things not being loosened up enough, then being tightened when not on the ground.
All control arm joints, anything with a bushing, should be loosened before the work starts, then tightened to spec only after the wheels are on and the truck back on the ground, on all four feet, sitting at it's new "curb height". Otherwise bushings are wound up, stressed.
Tires can be an issue - more than one person here has had tires swapped around, even replaced and it's resolved some issues, others have had good technical balancing done and it's helped.

 

[MarkN]

Ok. That all makes sense. I just spent a couple hours underneath checking fasteners. I torqued what I knew and made sure the rest were tight. There was no obvious signs of anything loose. So it sounds like I just need to start replacing components that are prone to wear with heavy duty parts. Any suggestions on where to start Without replacing the whole front end?

 

[NachoRuby]

Ok. That all makes sense. I just spent a couple hours underneath checking fasteners. I torqued what I knew and made sure the rest were tight. There was no obvious signs of anything loose. So it sounds like I just need to start replacing components that are prone to wear with heavy duty parts. Any suggestions on where to start Without replacing the whole front end?

It might not be obvious. The torque specs on the control arms, for example are extremely tight. I think it's around 200 ft. lbs, if I remember correctly. When I had the wobbles on my jeep, I thought everything was tight. It felt good. I took the torque wrench to everything, and the control arms weren't even close. I tightened the track bar, sway bars links, and all control arms (everything was less than spec), and away went my troubles.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Ok. That all makes sense. I just spent a couple hours underneath checking fasteners. I torqued what I knew and made sure the rest were tight. There was no obvious signs of anything loose. So it sounds like I just need to start replacing components that are prone to wear with heavy duty parts. Any suggestions on where to start Without replacing the whole front end?

Take this the right way, please - I don't know you or your technical abilities, background, experience, whatever - so I'm only guessing at best based on my own past experiences with others -
"Tight" to some is not always where it should be. Me, being a factory and college trained person and OCD and so on, when it says "200 pound/ft" of torque, that's what it's going to get. And that means my losing 25 pounds, eating some oatmeal instead of donuts and working my arm muscles a bit to get there.
When it says 50 pound/ft plus 115 degrees, that's what it gets (because the plain torque specs out there aren't as "tight" as the real factory spec) so I go by what the FCA tech specs are, not sheets floating around the web. I found that a sped floating out there of 190 isn't as tight as the factory spec of torque plus degrees - missing by about 20 pound/ft in my testing.
But that's me - 4 book cases of tech docs, TSBs, TSMs, and more - when it comes to tight - I do go by the book, so to speak.

Start "cheap" - don't just throw parts at it until it's right. If you can get your tires balanced by the seller/installer or have them take it the next step in balancing, it's never a bad thing Tire balance impacts tire wear, parts wear and other things that help you stay safe to enjoy your truck another day.
I'm picky - I want that axle centered under the truck - so if mine needed an adjustable, heavier track bar or even relocating to keep it more parallel than angled, I'd personally do that - that's me.
gotta run - parts in the zinc bath need to be pulled and rinsed.....

 

[ShadowsPapa]

It might not be obvious. The torque specs on the control arms, for example are extremely tight. I think it's around 200 ft. lbs, if I remember correctly. When I had the wobbles on my jeep, I thought everything was tight. It felt good. I took the torque wrench to everything, and the control arms weren't even close. I tightened the track bar, sway bars links, and all control arms (everything was less than spec), and away went my troubles.

No kidding. Clamping force is everything.

 

[MarkN]

Thanks. I’m in the process now of looking up all those torque specs.

 

[HooliganActual]

Another big culprit for DW is worn out ball joints, esp. when you've put bigger tires on. As Papa said, the stock parts are engineered to handle certain loads/stresses and those bigger tires can knock the stock ball joints out tout suite.

I bring this up specifically (there are lots of DW contributors) because there's an easy check for the ball joints: "the wiggle test". Lift the front axle so that the front wheels are off the ground and then just push back and forth on the top of the tire. If you've got a bad ball joint, the tire will wiggle...it's an easy check to rule that out.

 

[MarkN]

Great! Thank you Sir. I ll try that today.

Mark

 

[Escape.idiocracy]

Torque is one aspect…. If after torque is all done- and tire pressure is checked. I would start disassembling one at a time…. Look at track bar mounts- are the bolt holes wallowed? It happens fast… factory everything is thin steel.

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