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Death Wobble Without Stabilizer

Jeep&dogs

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Well, haven’t had time to do the steering upgrade but I did drive it for a few today, even with the new ball joints it’s still there. Pretty sure that was just another $400 down the drain. Only thing that changed since I did the ball joints and drove it was temps went from upper 40’s to low teens. I’m really starting to hate this Jeep. I bought it new because I didn’t want a project vehicle, I am planning on doing the Rusty’s steering on Sunday. If that doesn’t fix it I don’t know what else to do at this point. Something keeps bringing me back to tires and tire balance but I can’t just throw new tires on it again.
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TxJeepers

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Well, haven’t had time to do the steering upgrade but I did drive it for a few today, even with the new ball joints it’s still there. Pretty sure that was just another $400 down the drain. Only thing that changed since I did the ball joints and drove it was temps went from upper 40’s to low teens. I’m really starting to hate this Jeep. I bought it new because I didn’t want a project vehicle, I am planning on doing the Rusty’s steering on Sunday. If that doesn’t fix it I don’t know what else to do at this point. Something keeps bringing me back to tires and tire balance but I can’t just throw new tires on it again.
Right there with you. I’ve got new Synergy steering and Dana HD ball joints installed in my last round at a shop. Included alignment. When I go drive over my favorite death wobble bump I still get shimmy. The kind that tells me that DW is still there but being kept in check. I’ve got a Metalcloak track bar and full adjustable arms.
Checking out steering box TSB next. After that I might put on the Teraflex axle side front track bar bracket and their track bar. While I do that will probably add Rusty track bar frame side brace.
What is your status?
This is my ninth Wrangler and first that has had an ongoing DW and or shimmy issue. Crazy.
Tire balance can be part of it and at one point it actually cleared up my issue but the next time they got out of balance it was back. It’s just triggering it and it’s something else. I’ve had plenty of tires needing balancing on previous rigs without these steering issues.
 

Jeep&dogs

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Right there with you. I’ve got new Synergy steering and Dana HD ball joints installed in my last round at a shop. Included alignment. When I go drive over my favorite death wobble bump I still get shimmy. The kind that tells me that DW is still there but being kept in check. I’ve got a Metalcloak track bar and full adjustable arms.
Checking out steering box TSB next. After that I might put on the Teraflex axle side front track bar bracket and their track bar. While I do that will probably add Rusty track bar frame side brace.
What is your status?
This is my ninth Wrangler and first that has had an ongoing DW and or shimmy issue. Crazy.
Did the rustys steering installed and it’s better but still there. I have the synergy brace, synergy track bar, Clayton arms, and the new box. I have heard that synergy used the factory bushings in their track bar but I don’t know that it 100% accurate, but when I do a dry steer test there is a slight movement of the track bar. It also hits on the axle side so I have the Clayton track bar coming Friday. I also found a set of stock tires and wheels. Hopefully I can do the track bar this weekend and see what that does and then swap tires and wheels. I have owned several Jeep’s over the years and this is the first one I can’t get this eliminated on.
 

WontonJLUR

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Did the rustys steering installed and it’s better but still there. I have the synergy brace, synergy track bar, Clayton arms, and the new box. I have heard that synergy used the factory bushings in their track bar but I don’t know that it 100% accurate, but when I do a dry steer test there is a slight movement of the track bar. It also hits on the axle side so I have the Clayton track bar coming Friday. I also found a set of stock tires and wheels. Hopefully I can do the track bar this weekend and see what that does and then swap tires and wheels. I have owned several Jeep’s over the years and this is the first one I can’t get this eliminated on.
You ever get this sorted out?
 

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WontonJLUR

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That's a shame.

I've had my Jeep for 2 years, had the Milestar 37s for about 28k miles and no death wobble until the end where they started to wear funny and get out of balance. Now I'm on BFG 39s, first 4k miles on them was fine, thought that the tires cured the issue. Just rotated the tires and the DW is back in force. Semi aggressive toe out has solved the problem for the most part but I view this as a mostly temporary fix. I don't want to burn through tires every 10k.
 

TxJeepers

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Yeah, I ruled out tires and wheels on mine a while back. My problem started when I ran BFG/AEV setup and continues with my Nitto/Mopar Performance setup.
The BFGs balance issues is what originally brought the issue out into the open on mine and its been a battle ever since.
I get the new steel steering box on Monday. We'll see how that goes. I'm already planning for next steps which will be the Teraflex axle side raised bracket and Rustys frame side bracket.
I know Jeep&Dogs ruled out knuckles so I don't think I'm going to do that.
Maybe just need to do a U44 or go up to 60's. Its the whole damn axle assembly. IDK.
I have not tried playing with toe though and that might be something to do. I thought Jeep&dogs did and didn't get remedy.
What drives me mad though is that I can cruise down the road/highway and some bumps, good ones, won't even phase the Jeep, like its normal, but then other ones I get the shimmy and loose confidence in my safety.
 

WontonJLUR

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Yeah, I ruled out tires and wheels on mine a while back. My problem started when I ran BFG/AEV setup and continues with my Nitto/Mopar Performance setup.
The BFGs balance issues is what originally brought the issue out into the open on mine and its been a battle ever since.
I get the new steel steering box on Monday. We'll see how that goes. I'm already planning for next steps which will be the Teraflex axle side raised bracket and Rustys frame side bracket.
I know Jeep&Dogs ruled out knuckles so I don't think I'm going to do that.
Maybe just need to do a U44 or go up to 60's. Its the whole damn axle assembly. IDK.
I have not tried playing with toe though and that might be something to do. I thought Jeep&dogs did and didn't get remedy.
What drives me mad though is that I can cruise down the road/highway and some bumps, good ones, won't even phase the Jeep, like its normal, but then other ones I get the shimmy and loose confidence in my safety.

Going to a good amount of toe out fixes my problem, but that's horrible for the tire wear so I really don't want to stay there any longer than necessary.

MyJeep drives like a dream at highway speeds, but there are some bumps on our windy road from the highway to the house that will induce DW basically every time I hit them. The slight toe out has helped but I'd like to identify a permanent solution.
 

RancherRob

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Since some of you have replaced the ball joints and it didn't fix the DeathWobble, try a heavy duty track bar. I had a nice RockKrawler track bar that I thought was a great part of the lift kit but another member on here told me they replaced their RockKrawler trackbar and it solved their DW. I couldn't see how a trackbar would affect death wobble but I was desperate it was one of the 3 things I changed that cured the DW in my rig. I upgraded to the SteerSmarts Yeti XD Pro. Best of luck and I hope you get your DW cured. I feel for ya. It really sucked having DW for over a year and it's nice to have a jeep I can drive again (even if I did get it high centered in the snow recently on a busy street with everyone going by in the plowed lane jeering at me :).
 

jroever

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Similar setup and story - new JL with ~3k miles, GC 3.5" lift with Patagonia 37s - full Synergy upgrades (HD bars and brace etc.) and developed DW at 35mph. Found a worn out mount hole for trackbar at axle side. Tried torqueing to 150ft-lbs - no improvement so I added Teraflex axle side trackbar bracket for 2.5-3.5" lift yesterday - bump steer seemed to be a bit less but DW got worse - needed to come to full stop vs. slowing to 10mph before.

Car drives and steers like a dream at highway speeds.

FYI: with the Teraflex bracket added I could barely get my synergy trackbar short enough to fit and I believe the metalcloak trackbar would be too long for the bracket. Also check for the spot welds on the washers on the bracket - both should have two spot welds. On mine I had 3 on one side and only 1 on the other - this led to the washer sheering off. The new trackbar bolt is fairly short to not hit the axle behind. This results in the nut not fully sitting on the bolt thread - makes me a bit nervous.
 

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TxJeepers

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Since some of you have replaced the ball joints and it didn't fix the DeathWobble, try a heavy duty track bar. I had a nice RockKrawler track bar that I thought was a great part of the lift kit but another member on here told me they replaced their RockKrawler trackbar and it solved their DW. I couldn't see how a trackbar would affect death wobble but I was desperate it was one of the 3 things I changed that cured the DW in my rig. I upgraded to the SteerSmarts Yeti XD Pro. Best of luck and I hope you get your DW cured. I feel for ya. It really sucked having DW for over a year and it's nice to have a jeep I can drive again (even if I did get it high centered in the snow recently on a busy street with everyone going by in the plowed lane jeering at me :).
Already on third brand including Steer Smarts Pro. It's not track bar or DW for me.
 

TxJeepers

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FYI: with the Teraflex bracket added I could barely get my synergy trackbar short enough to fit and I believe the metalcloak trackbar would be too long for the bracket. Also check for the spot welds on the washers on the bracket - both should have two spot welds. On mine I had 3 on one side and only 1 on the other - this led to the washer sheering off. The new trackbar bolt is fairly short to not hit the axle behind. This results in the nut not fully sitting on the bolt thread - makes me a bit nervous.
That's concerning
 

WontonJLUR

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Found some pretty decent play/clunk in my pitman arm drag link end, so have a new yeti drag link on order. Also found the track bar bolts weren't very tight, and the mounting holes on the frame side were SLIGHTLY ovaled out, but not enough to be concerning.
 

jroever

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Trying to tightening Pitman arm once more is next for me, too. Just got a better breaker bar so will try to give it a few more ft-lbs.

BTW: I found a typo in the torque spec for lower control arms on this forum that I had used and was hopeful that fixing that would help (it should be 103 ft-lbs + 145deg here Link) but fixing that didn't do the trick. I think there is more than just one contributing factor anyways. My valve stems are not properly aligned with the yellow dot on my Patagonia 37s and there is an excessive amount of weights - swapping my rears (which have less weight on one of the tires) forward seemed to have changed the DW dynamics a bit - so there does seem to be a correlation.
I am starting to wonder if it is even possible to get rid of DW on JL's without steering stabilizers. I get it that stabilizer will not fix anything that is wrong with play or flex in steering components but if there is a resonance case that you happen to hit you need to have a dampening component to weed it out. After all, the 2020 Mopar DW fix was adding a flow channel to the steering stabilizer at the bottom - and I realized I might not have put that channel where it belongs ... so if you still use the factory stabilizer look for the orientation of the channel instead of trying to make sense of the stickers! I can't mount mine right now since I can't use the Teraflex bracket with my synergy stabilizer relocation bolt. (FYI: I got a new relocation bracket with proper spot welds but this time the washer was welded on 2mm off to the side not allowing a bolt to be pushed through)
Other than the low speed pot holes my Jeep's steering is next to perfect - sigh.
 

WontonJLUR

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Trying to tightening Pitman arm once more is next for me, too. Just got a better breaker bar so will try to give it a few more ft-lbs. .
My pitman arm nut itself was tight, but the drag end has some slop. Have you had someone turn the wheel back and forth while you sit under the Jeep and analyze the track bar ends/drag link ends/tie rod ends/ball joints?

Any of those can be just loose enough or worn enough to allow some shimmy into the system when going over a pothole.
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