Experienced my first Death Wobble

[Upnarms]

As stated earlier, I did not have DW since I put on the Steersmarts XD Yeti TB, but I was getting some occasional shimmy when hitting bumps at speed. I had ordered the SS sector shaft brace and had it installed today at Venture Offroad in Scottsdale AZ. I didnt have the right socket and by the time I would buy it and get a 3/4" socket adapter, I figured it would be not too much under just having it installed. They put it on within an hour and Mike hooked me up with a take-off Fox steering stabilizer to replace my factory one. Pretty awesome of him to do that for me! Anyway, I had no experience with any other stabilizer, but immediately I noticed the steering wheel actually has resistance to it and doesnt just bounce around on bumps, etc. My factory one was either junk or worn out or both (prob both), cause the steering wheel felt very loose in comparison to how it is now. Hard to say if the sector shaft brace or the stabilizer made the biggest difference, but Im guessing the stabilizer is to get the credit cause when I turn the wheel, it just feels tighter and the steering wheel itself stays put unlike before where it wanted to move around.

Im still going to upgrade the tierod and draglink next, just to beef things up even more.

Anyway, a shout out to Venture Offroad for the hook up and great install. They did my lift as well and I couldnt be happier with their service.

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[Dewaddict]

We are on our third Wrangler. Never experienced death wobble in our 2010. We least a 2018 intending to buy it when the lease was up. Experience the death wobble had it fixed three times twice under warranty once under recall. Started to do it again and decided that note we would buy a new Jeep. Our 2021 has started doing it now at only 18,000 miles. Most recently we were on a bad stretch of highway 94 and it did it to us six times in about 15 mi. We were behind a slow semi and every time we tried to speed up to 70 or so to pass it we would get the wobble as soon as we crossed back over the joint in the concrete road. We got off onto back roads so we didn't have to go over 55 miles an hour and it was good then for the most part. Everything on the Jeep is still stock.

 

[Herson]

Reviving this thread. Rubicon 4cyl, 392 suspension and wheels on 35s. Close to hit 40k on the odometer. About a week ago I installed the fox TS Steering Stabilizer. Now I have death wobble. It never had death wobble until I changed the SS. Went and check the torque on the track bar and is ok. Re-torqued the steering damper and nothing. My plan now is to revert to the stock damper and see if it reverts back to normal. The only visible slight play is the pitman arm/drag link joint. Haven’t checked torque on the ball joints or tie rod.

 

[cns721]

Reviving this thread. Rubicon 4cyl, 392 suspension and wheels on 35s. Close to hit 40k on the odometer. About a week ago I installed the fox TS Steering Stabilizer. Now I have death wobble. It never had death wobble until I changed the SS. Went and check the torque on the track bar and is ok. Re-torqued the steering damper and nothing. My plan now is to revert to the stock damper and see if it reverts back to normal. The only visible slight play is the pitman arm/drag link joint. Haven’t checked torque on the ball joints or tie rod.

Oh wow, sounds exactly like the situation I had. First thing I would do is take off the track bar and insert the bolts back into the mounting holes. See if the mounting holes have a bigger diameter than the bolt itself. If it does, then you'll want to a brace to reinforce the mounting hole in order to secure the bolt in place.

Driver side: https://www.northridge4x4.com/part/...OtXRqqmXPxdSnt-6C6slXlpQ7-9ltOWQaAqzSEALw_wcB

Passenger side: https://www.northridge4x4.com/part/...eti-xd-steering-stabilizer-relocation-bracket

I would start with that first and if it doesn't help, move onto the drag link and tie rod. It's definitely not the steering stabilizer.

Thanks to @Roky for the endless advice that helped me to eliminate the death wobble on my Jeep.

 

[Herson]

Oh wow, sounds exactly like the situation I had. First thing I would do is take off the track bar and insert the bolts back into the mounting holes. See if the mounting holes have a bigger diameter than the bolt itself. If it does, then you'll want to a brace to reinforce the mounting hole in order to secure the bolt in place.

Driver side: https://www.northridge4x4.com/part/...OtXRqqmXPxdSnt-6C6slXlpQ7-9ltOWQaAqzSEALw_wcB

Passenger side: https://www.northridge4x4.com/part/...eti-xd-steering-stabilizer-relocation-bracket

I would start with that first and if it doesn't help, move onto the drag link and tie rod. It's definitely not the steering stabilizer.

Thanks to @Roky for the endless advice that helped me to eliminate the death wobble on my Jeep.

Thanks for the recommendation.
I was considering that bracket. What is lame is that you expect better performance form a SS Upgrade and it makes everything worst. There was no play on the track bar when I moved the steering wheel. I will install the OEM damper today and see how it goes. If it takes the DW away, I will want a refund for this POS fox damper.

 

[cns721]

Thanks for the recommendation.
I was considering that bracket. What is lame is that you expect better performance form a SS Upgrade and it makes everything worst. There was no play on the track bar when I moved the steering wheel. I will install the OEM damper today and see how it goes. If it takes the DW away, I will want a refund for this POS fox damper.

It's just that the upgraded SS is more stiffer and is putting more pressure on something that's barely loose. I didn't have any visible play with any of my suspension and steering parts. I would still suggest that you try to track down the root cause of the wobble. 99% of the time, it shouldn't be the SS from what I've read. I'm still running the Fox TS SS even after it exposed the death wobble. It's working great now that I replaced the track bar, tie rod and drag link as well as adding those braces. I wish I focused on the track bar mounting holes because I truly believe that was the reason why I had the DW. I had already replaced the track bar, tie rod and drag link before I noticed the mounting hole on the axle (passenger side) was a bit wallowed out. However, I'm glad that I now have a refreshed front end components though.

 

[XX4XEXX]

You guys are not realizing something you all have in common. Your removing the SS bolt that connects the front TB. That bolt must be at minimum 110# and unless you have that thing in the air or your King Kong 110# is hard to twist up. Also sometimes the hole in the OE TB bracket can become loose and no matter how tight you wrench the bolt it will be loose.

There is no way you "just" installed a Fox SS and now have an issue it being the SS. This issue has been address thousands of times on this forum.

Step back and look at a few things. You can also install a TB relocation bracket if you have a loose bolt. We had to weld to stamped plates and drill out 2 holes front and back to solve a 500 mile new DW issue, not 35 or 45k 500.

 

[Herson]

You guys are not realizing something you all have in common. Your removing the SS bolt that connects the front TB. That bolt must be at minimum 110# and unless you have that thing in the air or your King Kong 110# is hard to twist up. Also sometimes the hole in the OE TB bracket can become loose and no matter how tight you wrench the bolt it will be loose.


There is no way you "just" installed a Fox SS and now have an issue it being the SS. This issue has been address thousands of times on this forum.

Step back and look at a few things. You can also install a TB relocation bracket if you have a loose bolt. We had to weld to stamped plates and drill out 2 holes front and back to solve a 500 mile new DW issue, not 35 or 45k 500.

The TS SS is installed in the original position (tie rod) and not to the TB as you mentioned.

 

[cns721]

You guys are not realizing something you all have in common. Your removing the SS bolt that connects the front TB. That bolt must be at minimum 110# and unless you have that thing in the air or your King Kong 110# is hard to twist up. Also sometimes the hole in the OE TB bracket can become loose and no matter how tight you wrench the bolt it will be loose.

There is no way you "just" installed a Fox SS and now have an issue it being the SS. This issue has been address thousands of times on this forum.

Step back and look at a few things. You can also install a TB relocation bracket if you have a loose bolt. We had to weld to stamped plates and drill out 2 holes front and back to solve a 500 mile new DW issue, not 35 or 45k 500.

The stock SS doesn't bolt to the track bar. It bolts to the tie rod and the axle I believe? Unless you have the SS relocation kit that moves the SS to the track bar bolt.

 

[Herson]

The stock SS doesn't bolt to the track bar. It bolts to the tie rod and the axle I believe? Unless you have the SS relocation kit that moves the SS to the track bar bolt.

Exactly.

 

[cns721]

but yeah, @Herson, I would definitely recommend undoing the track bar bolts enough so you can check the mounting hole before you do anything else, including swapping back to the stock SS.

Here's a picture of my mounting hole being wallowed out. You can see the diameter is bigger than the bolt size.

 

[Herson]

but yeah, @Herson, I would definitely recommend undoing the track bar bolts enough so you can check the mounting hole before you do anything else, including swapping back to the stock SS.

Here's a picture of my mounting hole being wallowed out. You can see the diameter is bigger than the bolt size.

What did you use to correct the larger hole diameter?

 

[cns721]

What did you use to correct the larger hole diameter?

If the passenger side is wallowed out, get this. You'll have to get the clamp that relocates the SS to the middle of the tie rod if you end up getting this brace. You'll also need to drill out a 2nd hole to secure the brace onto the track bar mounting hardware.

If it's the driver side, get this. If you want to save money, you can get it without the sector shaft brace.

Both braces have holes with the correct diameter that will secure the bolt in place.

Also Northridge has a 10% coupon for this forum - just enter jlwranglerforums in the promo code field.

 

[XX4XEXX]

Typo. And what we did weld 2 high tension steel plates and drill out holes. Ive also seen ball joints wallow out and the bolt will be tqed fine but a gap btwn the nut and top of steering knuckle is present.

 

[cns721]

What did you use to correct the larger hole diameter?

Another thing I wanted to throw out in case you do end up having wallowed out holes, I would rebalance the tires with a reputable shop. Don't go to the chain ones like Firestone, Mavis, etc. Find a shop that does road force balancing. This should help reduce the vibration that causes the holes to wallow out.

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