Death Wobble Question

[Jeepsk8]

I went searching for 9/16 hardware today. I located some but I couldn't find a drill bit. I decided to just forego that for now and check to see if there is slop in the axle side mount. I loosened the bolt and tried to get that side of the trackbar to move with the bolt still in...no dice. That is not where my wobble is.

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[Jeep&dogs]

I went searching for 9/16 hardware today. I located some but I couldn't find a drill bit. I decided to just forego that for now and check to see if there is slop in the axle side mount. I loosened the bolt and tried to get that side of the trackbar to move with the bolt still in...no dice. That is not where my wobble is.

Is that the Metal Cloak bolt? Mine still has the factory bolt in it and when loose my track bar will move 1/8”. I haven’t tried the frame side.

 

[sourdough]

I just watched these part 1 & 2 videos and they explain DW better than any other videos I've seen....
https://emfballjoints.com/pages/helphq#/collection/743/article/12399
These are for a Ram 3500(which I also own) but most of the info crosses between our Wrangler and the Ram.

 

[Jeepsk8]

Is that the Metal Cloak bolt? Mine still has the factory bolt in it and when loose my track bar will move 1/8”. I haven’t tried the frame side.

Yes, I confirmed it was while I was there.

 

[Jeep&dogs]

I just watched these part 1 & 2 videos and they explain DW better than any other videos I've seen....
https://emfballjoints.com/pages/helphq#/collection/743/article/12399
These are for a Ram 3500(which I also own) but most of the info crosses between our Wrangler and the Ram.

So two INCREDIBLY interesting things about their videos,

1.The brand new KO2’s he says are junk because of the shimmy you see on the balancer.......if he thinks THAT is bad he should see how bad the ones on my Jeep shimmy! His are nothing compared to what mine do on the balancer.

2. I think he is absolutely on to something with the spool valve in the box contributing to it and also the tolerance in the box. That could very well explain why one Jeep is perfect and the next one is terrible. It also makes sense why when I was playing with different toe settings and I didn’t take the time to center the wheel it was worse.

 

[rrsontag]

Accidentally posted this under a different topic earlier....

So I removed my trackbar brace because why not at this point. Paying attention to the amount of clamping force on the trackbar before and after. It does seem to me that the trackbar is clamped tighter without the brace. Now I didn't measure or anything just the eyeball test, so take it with a grain of salt.

Also took the jeep back to Discount for another round of road force balancing. I noticed the spare has an impressive amount of weights on it. This lead me to asking why there are so many weights. They just said they had a hard time balancing some of the tires. But ultimately got them.

Now I feel like there is an improvement, (could be psychological), but I don't feel as much shimmy.

So is balancing solely to do with the tires or do the wheels play a factor as well? I assume they would have to on some level. Then if they are that difficult to balance, after riding in one spot for several thousand miles, would a rotation cause issues? Do we have to rebalance after every rotation?

 

[Jeep&dogs]

Accidentally posted this under a different topic earlier....

So I removed my trackbar brace because why not at this point. Paying attention to the amount of clamping force on the trackbar before and after. It does seem to me that the trackbar is clamped tighter without the brace. Now I didn't measure or anything just the eyeball test, so take it with a grain of salt.

Also took the jeep back to Discount for another round of road force balancing. I noticed the spare has an impressive amount of weights on it. This lead me to asking why there are so many weights. They just said they had a hard time balancing some of the tires. But ultimately got them.

Now I feel like there is an improvement, (could be psychological), but I don't feel as much shimmy.

So is balancing solely to do with the tires or do the wheels play a factor as well? I assume they would have to on some level. Then if they are that difficult to balance, after riding in one spot for several thousand miles, would a rotation cause issues? Do we have to rebalance after every rotation?

The wheels play a very small factor, if they are using a road force balancer they check the rim for runout. When they have “a hard time” balancing the tires is when I get concerned. The first replacement tire they put on mine would not balance, they tried telling me it was my rim. My first question was how did the “bad” tire they were replacing have less weight? My second question was if they had another new tire. The second new tire took 1/3 the weight and balanced out.

 

[rayzjeep]

I have the same shimmy myself...on a 2.5" RK Adventure series lift, TR bead locks, 37" Yoko MT's and all Steersmarts steering...and the new steel steering box. Shimmy seems worse than with the aluminum box and more bump steer...lol. Swapping tires this week to see if that's the culprit for the shimmy.....frame side bolt seems like a good idea as well.

 

[Jeep&dogs]

Not sure if this video will post or not but it’s pretty shocking to see how much the gear box flexes on the frames of theses things! That’s even with a gearbox brace and the sector shaft brace.

 

[rrsontag]

Not sure if this video will post or not but it’s pretty shocking to see how much the gear box flexes on the frames of theses things! That’s even with a gearbox brace and the sector shaft brace.

That's wild....

 

[Jeep&dogs]

It’s actually the top of the box, the frame stays pretty solid.

 

[Somefun]

I just got my steering box brace, adjustable track bars, HD tie rod and drag link installed and she drives as good or better than stock at this point. But I guess for another 1800.00 she should. Lol

 

[sourdough]

Not sure if this video will post or not but it’s pretty shocking to see how much the gear box flexes on the frames of theses things! That’s even with a gearbox brace and the sector shaft brace.

any other link to this ? I could not get it to play

 

[Headbarcode]

My Wrangler technician once told me,

"If they only used weights in the middle of the wheel, that doesn’t get rid of shimmy. If they have weights on the inner lip and just behind the spokes then that should control shimmy as well as bounce."

In regards to that upcoming feeling of death wobble, right after hitting a bump at speed, I cannot over stress on this forum, the importance of excellent tire balancing, and a good round tire with no defects.

I too have 37in KO2's with a MetalCloak 2.5 inch True Dual Rate set up, with a stock stabilzer. I have been running this setup for two years now, rides like a dream, BUT i was experiencing SLIGHT shimmy the first few weeks after it was installed. Brought toe to 0.04in, rebalanced the tires, tire pressure 30psi cold, and have been good ever since.

In fact it's riding so well, I'm scared to install the lower MetalCloak front control arms, and and bring my present Caster setting from an even 6.0, to anything higher(as recommended by most on this forum)!

I was also able to get rid of a bad shimmy, that would occasionally go full death wobble, by simply dropping the total toe-in from 3/16" down to 1/16". Crazy how small of a tweak it took to completely improve the drive ability.

Just get a baseline caster angle before installing the lca's, and a length measurement of the stock arms. At that point, you can either match the new arms length to the old, or take advantage of being able to center the axle, fore and aft, by extending all 4 arms accordingly. I do fully understand the hesitation to keep going when everything so far is dialed in nice.

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