Chasing Death Wobble--HELP

[XX4XEXX]

Those are flat out loose/bad ball joints. Our 3 never sounded like this and being your chasing DW you got some loose or bad parts. If you ruled the tires out I'd drop in teraflex joints it's worth the 300$. Also check the bottom OE track bar bracket hole.

Honest to god. I checked 5 of my neighbors low mileage JLs and at least 5 down at the lot 1/4 mile from my house. ALL sounded exactly like the video posted above.

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[Az-jewel]

I thought some play in the draglink was normal? I'm no expert.
It sounds more like bump steer than death wobble. Even a small lift changes the steering geometry and can be responsible.
The alignment and balancing will help, and check the ball joints as mentioned.
I hope you can find the culprit and address it. It's a tricky and frustrating issue and be comforted you're not alone.

 

[XX4XEXX]

In our "quest" searching for DW we found the factory bolt hole too big not wallowed out from the factory. Welded 2 stamped and punched plates front and rear problem solved. Would of never guessed it. Maybe in the future we will install a high steer but for now we nailed it.

Went through tons of other trouble shooting and found other issues at 1200 miles as well.

 

[spinxt]

Well, the tire rotation/balance/alignment worked for a while, but the wobble has reared it ugly head again. Since I've already replaced the track bar, what would you try next?

-Drag Link?
-Ball Joints?

Aside from the video i posted earlier with the (what some call normal and others don't) play in the knuckle side of the drag link, there is no obvious sign of any other wear (in the drag link joints or the ball joints).

I feel like I'm just guessing at this point.

 

[Tank the Jeep]

Have you re-torqued all the suspension points? Chasing DW is difficult at best. Still just guessing, but I would take a hard look at the ball joints.

 

[Tank the Jeep]

I just checked my track bar and it makes a similar noise to your video. I think it is rotating not up and down (at least on mine).
Good luck

 

[spinxt]

Are you sure you’re talking about the track bar and not the drag link. The video of I shared was of my drag link (Not the track bar)

 

[Mark D]

The more I see DW posts the less I like straight axles. If no components appear worn, all fasteners are torqued to factory specs, front end is aligned and tires are balanced the next step to take is (since you don’t want to go back to stock) install a set of adjustable lower control arms and set the caster to 6.5.

 

[Unrated]

The drag link on our Wrangler has been doing that for about 2000 miles or so with no DW. But we did have bad DW, I replaced the ball joints at 17500 miles and it was a major improvement. No DW at all since replacement. For reference I installed 35” tires at purchase and mopar lift. You need new ball joints.

 

[mtbjeep]

Does it only happen when it's cold? It happens to me but only when it's cold. One other thing I was recently told to consider is a faulty front shock. If the cold makes a faulty valve stick then you can get undamped oscillation/hop triggering the wobble, even if everything else is spot on.

 

[Moto_21]

UPDATE: I found a significant amount of play in the knuckle end of the drag link. Could this be causing my issue? I can physically grab the drag link and feel and hear play in the joint.

The tie rod and draglink are ball joints, its normal for them to rotate back and forth and circular. it would be bad, IF you can move it up and down on the ball, or if you turn the steering back and forth and can see the steering moving and not moving the knuckle.

 

[spinxt]

UPDATE: DW is GONE! (Fingers crossed). Here was my process of diagnosing/fixing:

1) Tire Rotation/ Road-force balance & Alignment. (worked for a bit, but came back within a couple weeks)

2) Replaced track bar with aftermarket one and re-torqued all suspension bolts related to the front suspension with Jeep on the ground. (felt better overall, but DW still present over specific types of bumps)

3) Replaced ball joints with Teraflex HD ball joints, installed Teraflex/Falcon adjustable steering stabilizer, and longer sway bar endlinks (to compensate for lift)-- DW GONE! Not sure which one of these had the biggest impact, but I would agree with others that it's the ball joints. The stock ball joints felt like noodles compared to the Teraflex ones.

The Jeep feels so good now and is more like driving my grand Cherokee than the stock Wrangler. Jeep should be embarrassed of the under-engineered steering/suspension components they put in these things. Even with a class-action lawsuit that appears is going to force Stalantis to honor DW warranty claims to 80K miles, Jeeps only solution is to throw a better stabilizer at the problem. I don't understand why they don't just figure out a permanent solution rather than continue to throw a bandaid at it.

 

[Opus]

I don't understand why they don't just figure out a permanent solution rather than continue to throw a bandaid at it.

My guess is that a bean-counter in the corporate office calculated that the suit will cost them less in the long-run than upgrading components would.

 

[spinxt]

You're likely right! (Unfortunately )

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