Death Wobble

[Sully]

I have got a real bad case of the dreaded death wobble. I was driving in town at about 55mph when I hit a large bump or dip in the road. My jeep started shaking like no other. This was no joult it was just down right scary! I slowed down to a stop. As I was slowing I looked out the window and saw my front wheel moving side to side almost turning me into oncoming traffic. It was skaing and moving all over the place. Anyways I limped it to the hotel tightened my tie rod, drag link, suspension, lug and steering damper nuts. Drove it and it is a little better.I tried to repeat the death wobble but only got it when I hit big bumps. The jeep has been driving with no problems for at least 800 miles. I am going to tighten up my ubolts today. After that one bump my jeep hasnt been the same. It was so sudden I dont know what else to do except go over every nut and bolt. If I cant get this sorted out. I am leaving my jeep in denver. Anyone know what else I should try?

[JeepGal]

I took this from JeepBBS...Blaine posted it:

First things first with Death Wobble. Start with the basics. Get the tires balanced again. This time, stand there and make sure that the tires don't have any hop in the tread while they are spinning them on the balancer.

The rims and tires must be true and balanced before you go any further with solving this issue.

Next- Have someone with sharp eyes and good hands sit under the front of the rig. Someone needs to be cranking the steering wheel back and forth with the engine off just enough to move all the steering parts but not enough to move the wheels. This needs to be done at a fairly rapid rate. It will seem like your arms are going to fall off, but keep doing it.

The person under the front needs to check every link point, steering box attachment points, and the relationships of all the connections to find out what is loose. Watch for the mount points of the steering box especially.

Let us know what is moving that's not supposed to be.

This is solveable and at this point, I'm putting my money on the tires being out of balance, the steering box being loose and the track bar bolts not being perfectly tight. Or any combination thereof.

HTH

Tam

[Jeri Lyn]

I have got a real bad case of the dreaded death wobble. I was driving in town at about 55mph when I hit a large bump or dip in the road. My jeep started shaking like no other. This was no joult it was just down right scary! I slowed down to a stop. As I was slowing I looked out the window and saw my front wheel moving side to side almost turning me into oncoming traffic. It was skaing and moving all over the place. Anyways I limped it to the hotel tightened my tie rod, drag link, suspension, lug and steering damper nuts. Drove it and it is a little better.I tried to repeat the death wobble but only got it when I hit big bumps. The jeep has been driving with no problems for at least 800 miles. I am going to tighten up my ubolts today. After that one bump my jeep hasnt been the same. It was so sudden I dont know what else to do except go over every nut and bolt. If I cant get this sorted out. I am leaving my jeep in denver. Anyone know what else I should try?

What finally made mine go away, after making sure wheels were balanced, etc, was all the front end bushings were replaced and a new steering stabilizer. Make sure your bushings aren't cracked, flattened, etc. Good luck!

[Davisrats]

on my XJ it took a tire ballance, front end alignment, shocks and a stabilizer to fix the DW.

[chris142]

My stock 02 had this problem. It turned out to be the bushing where the track bar bolts to the axle.

I was able to burn the old bushing out and replaced to with a hard plastic one for under $10.

[paultyler]

Everytime this happens the steering stabilizer seems to be the fix.

[Comrade Andy]

'Cos you're running leaf springs you can pretty much narrow it down to a couple of things. I used to get DW when i hit a bump and the steering wasn't under load, now you've got to remember here that I don't run sway bars, track bars or even a steering stabilizer. The culpret after putting back various parts turned out to be worn steering components, a combination of tie rod ends and steering box allowed the front end to load and unload rapidly i.e. Death wobble!. After replacing those parts i'm back to my no bar setup and the dreaded DW seems to be limited to E.S.M. (extremely stupid manouvers) Don't take this as a sugestion to start removing stuff, just to take a look at the front end components peice by peice! BTW my wife hates driving my car!

[king4wd2]

We had a DW on our Jeep and found out it was the cam bolts, but now we have a slight DW and it's the tires right now. Actually, it was the tires. Just had them replaced.

[sarah]

Sully this is your CJ right?
Boy you guys are having one helluva trip!