Finally fixed my death wobble!!

[DexterJeeper]

TLDR: if you have a shimmy, a mini-wobble or full on death wobble, check your factory ball joints!

I know a lot of you guys are having unsolved shimmys, mini-wobbles, or full blown wobbles so I wanted to share my experience on how I fixed my particular issues with the community. Hopefully this will help some of you out and save you from spending a bunch of money needlessly!

My 19 JLUR is currently at 48k but the first time I felt a shimmy was when I hit a man hole cover, coming off a highway at 14k miles. I had done a mopar lift at 500 and put on 37s. Other than that, I had all factory steering components. At first I ignored the problem but it got progressively worse so I decided it was time to upgrade. I did the usual checks, caster, tire pressure, ball joints, alignment, torque, etc. Nothing felt loose or unusual but I decided to upgrade my steering components anyway. After doing some research, I went for Synergy and did the track bar, tie rod and drag link. I also ordered the trackbar/sector shaft brace at the same time and did them all at once.

After all the parts went in, I went for a test drive and to my shock and disappointment, the mini-wobble was still there. I reached out to synergy and they recommended that I over torque some of the clamp bolts. The reason was I found a little bit of play on the drag link due to how far you need to extend it. I tried it and it felt a bit better but the wobble was still there.

The next thing I tried was to replace all of the Mopar lift with a MetalCloak 3.5GC, along with 6pak shocks. Since it came with a track bar, I put the MC cloak one on just to see if that helped. I also set all the control arms to exactly the specs that came with the MC kit. At this point, I'm at around 30k miles and the problem didn't get worse but it still didn't get better. So the hunt for my root cause continues.

My next thing was to get outside help. I live about 2 hours from Dr. Death Wobble. So I thought what the hell, couldn't hurt right? I reached out, scheduled an appointment and got my Jeep in his shop. He spent about a week going over everything. At the end, he ordered a new clamp for the drag link and adjusted my toe settings from toe in to toe out. He also advised turning off the esteer. So $500 later, I went to my trusty death wobble trigger spot and F*** the wobble was still there!!

Not ready to give up at this point, a friend recommended the new synergy trackbar relocation kit along with a drag link flip. I'm at 3.5" lift so why not! I'm willing to try anything at this point. I got the kit installed & took the jeep for a drive. The roll center change definitely made the Jeep drive better over bumps but the GD wobble was still there!!

Finally, I was driving to Chicago one day and I hit a bump on the onramp and BAM! Fully on death wobble. No more little shimmys, bump steers or mini-wobbles. I'm talking the crazy ass scary shakes that doesn't go away until you come to a full stop. I've had enough at this point and decided to go for the biggest beef and change the only thing I haven't: the ball joints. I ordered the Dynatrac ball joints and the RPM 2.5ton steering gear and went to town on the front end. Wouldn't you know it, this combination completely fixed my wobbles.

So what's my theory? I believe on the JLs, the standard crowbar ball joint test doesn't reveal the underlying problems. I believe the plastic "bushing" inside the factory joints wear out quickly with the bigger tires but even if you can't detect play, they are still damaged. I did put my old synergy steering stuff back on first just to isolate the problem. The wobbles definitely came from the ball joints since i had none with the Dynatrac joints.

My rig drives like a brand new Jeep now. The steering feels just as solid and composed as my wife's Grand Cherokee--WAY better than stock. It's still a solid axle so I'm not expecting the same level of sensitivity though. I have to say both Dynatrac and RPM make some beautiful parts with the best tolerances I've ever seen.

What has been your experience? Would love to hear about your journey on this!

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[aldo98229]

A side-effect of mounting large, heavy tires is that they wear out the factory steering and suspension parts prematurely.

My 2013 Rubicon with 35-inch General Grabber Red Letter MTs, which weighed 90 lbs EACH, needed a new tie-rod and drag link at 13,000 miles. My Jeep had progressively developed bump steer, and the front end was rattling increasingly louder.

My dealer at the time offered to replace the parts under warranty, but warned me that I’d be in the same spot in another 10,000 miles because of the heavy tires.

The Service Manager, an avid Jeeper himself, recommended I install beefier YETI parts instead, on my penny of course.

When I sold the Jeep with 36,000 miles, the steering remained tight and straight.

 

[Dyolfknip74]

"Dr Death Wobble" didn't think to confirm ball joints? Must be a PhD.

 

[DexterJeeper]

"Dr Death Wobble" didn't think to confirm ball joints? Must be a PhD.

That's why I think this issue is tricky. Maybe it was just my set but my factory ball joints didn't show signs of wear based on the normal ways we look for looseness or play. I feel stupid now after going through all this pain when a few hundred bucks and a few hours would've solved my problem.

 

[Dyolfknip74]

That's why I think this issue is tricky. Maybe it was just my set but my factory ball joints didn't show signs of wear based on the normal ways we look for looseness or play. I feel stupid now after going through all this pain when a few hundred bucks and a few hours would've solved my problem.

I get you missing it, it's pretty easy but a dude with the moniker like that had to have seen it before. Especially with 37s.

 

[DexterJeeper]

I get you missing it, it's pretty easy but a dude with the moniker like that had to have seen it before. Especially with 37s.

Can't argue with that logic! ?

 

[entropy]

A side-effect of mounting large, heavy tires is that they wear out the factory steering and suspension parts prematurely.

My 2013 Rubicon with 35-inch General Grabber Red Letter MTs, which weighed 90 lbs EACH, needed a new tie-rod and drag link at 13,000 miles.

Jesus why would you get such heavy tires?

 

[aldo98229]

Jesus why would you get such heavy tires?

Those were the 2010s. We didn’t have the selection of all-terrains we have now; this was before KO2 came out. Back then all-terrains were dorky-looking tires, one notch above all-seasons!

Real Jeepers rode on mud terrains...! ?

 

[gato]

I don't have death wobble, but my factory ball-joints click and pop like crazy when turning, even after multiple rounds of tightening. Annoying as hell. I did have some shimmy for a while that I traced to the Synergy steering stabilizer relocation clamp being loose.

You need to be wary of Synergy somewhat. They didn't change their tie-rods to account for the wider Rubicon axles and the adjusters hand at the outer limits of allowable length. Similar, I think they repurposed their JK aftermarket 1 and 5/8th clamp for the JL OEM tierod which is a metric diameter and marginally narrower. My clamp is 100% closed on both sides around the tierod. Hard to tell if it will move under load or not.

Synergy cut lots of corners on the JL.

Anyway, I think I'll upgrade knuckle and ball joints at the same time if I ever get wobble. I hope my axle Cs don't get damaged by these bad factory ball joints.

 

[DexterJeeper]

I don't have death wobble, but my factory ball-joints click and pop like crazy when turning, even after multiple rounds of tightening. Annoying as hell. I did have some shimmy for a while that I traced to the Synergy steering stabilizer relocation clamp being loose.

You need to be wary of Synergy somewhat. They didn't change their tie-rods to account for the wider Rubicon axles and the adjusters hand at the outer limits of allowable length. Similar, I think they repurposed their JK aftermarket 1 and 5/8th clamp for the JL OEM tierod which is a metric diameter and marginally narrower. My clamp is 100% closed on both sides around the tierod. Hard to tell if it will move under load or not.

Synergy cut lots of corners on the JL.

Anyway, I think I'll upgrade knuckle and ball joints at the same time if I ever get wobble. I hope my axle Cs don't get damaged by these bad factory ball joints.

I completely agree with you. My tie rod basically had to extend fully to fit. I had to way over tighten the clamps to eliminate play because of that. The pitman arm end of the draglink was also very hard to secure because of the number of adjustable parts. I don't think I ever eliminated the play completely. Now that I have replaced them with the RPM Steering 2.5 Tons, the difference in feel is insane. For the first time, my front end feels like a solid block driving down the road vs the twitchy mess I'm used to.

Also I live in MI so my knuckles were a huge pain to remove from the ball joints because of the corrosion. I broke a pickle fork and a ball joint separator doing it. I also had to heat and beat the crap out of the aluminum knuckles so I can see some Reids or Mojave steel knuckles in my future. ?

 

[oceanblue2019]

I don't have death wobble, but my factory ball-joints click and pop like crazy when turning, even after multiple rounds of tightening. Annoying as hell. I did have some shimmy for a while that I traced to the Synergy steering stabilizer relocation clamp being loose.

You need to be wary of Synergy somewhat. They didn't change their tie-rods to account for the wider Rubicon axles and the adjusters hand at the outer limits of allowable length. Similar, I think they repurposed their JK aftermarket 1 and 5/8th clamp for the JL OEM tierod which is a metric diameter and marginally narrower. My clamp is 100% closed on both sides around the tierod. Hard to tell if it will move under load or not.

Synergy cut lots of corners on the JL.

Anyway, I think I'll upgrade knuckle and ball joints at the same time if I ever get wobble. I hope my axle Cs don't get damaged by these bad factory ball joints.

Lots of people don't understand the single and double adjuster setup Synergy uses and set it up wrong.

On the single adjust side the minimum threaded distance is the concern. As long as you are threaded in that far, or further, it will clamp correctly.

On the d/a side you need to get the adjuster setup properly first so the rod end is fully bottomed into the adjuster and the adjuster into the rod. You can then turn the adjuster as much as needed as long as you don't go past the minimum engagement. But be aware the closer to that minimum engagement the better it will clamp; and if too far engaged it will not clamp well at all.

You do not need a lot of adjustment range as once setup right the only adjustment is for toe in/out.

I've helped/installed many of these and once you understand how the adjusters work they really are not a big issue.

 

[dietch]

That's why I think this issue is tricky. Maybe it was just my set but my factory ball joints didn't show signs of wear based on the normal ways we look for looseness or play. I feel stupid now after going through all this pain when a few hundred bucks and a few hours would've solved my problem.

A few hundred bucks....the dynatrac ball joint kit is almost $600. You really did go to town on that front end.

 

[Roky]

Put synergy tie rod on 2 years ago, haven’t touched it since, other than unhook it to do my knuckles and ball joints. Not crazy about synergy, but their tie rod has been rock solid, and I’m waiting for it to fail so i can go another route, but it looks like I'm gonna be in for a wait.

 

[DexterJeeper]

A few hundred bucks....the dynatrac ball joint kit is almost $600. You really did go to town on that front end.

I know there are cheaper options but I REALLY didn't want to do it again ?

 

[Steveo]

I have all Synergy steering components and 37s and was having DW too. I installed the Dynatrac BJs a week ago and early testing indicates they solved my DW as well. I also did the RR knuckles and RCV shafts at the same time. I'll know for sure when I do a longer road trip soon.

And my Jeep only has about 13k miles on it.

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