TJ owners, I could use some help

I have a good friend who just purchased a 3" lifted TJ and is having a problem I cant figure out. The dreaded DEATH WOBBLES! We are not sure what type of lift kit is on it. What I need to know is: 1-What is the length of a stock pitman arm, 2-can anyone send me a good pic. of their stock front panhard bar?,3-With 3" lift springs is it normal for the spring to look a little off center when compared to the bumpstop in the middle of it?
I mostly only have experience with leaf spring vehicles. The shocks and steering stabilizer are new. Sway bars stil attached using longer links.Has 33" tires if I remember correctly. At about 40mph the thing leaves the road it's so bad if you run over anything bigger than a bottle cap. The thing darts around worse than my old cj with 38" tires and a springover kit even at about 20mph. When it starts jumpin' if you look out the window the front axel looks like it's tryin' to escape out the side(maybe it's scared to). I have posted a few crappy pic.s. Any advise would be appriciated

OK so I don't have a TJ but have been able to resolve death wobble on mine when the mechanic failed. I had someone get in the vehicle and turn the wheel back and forth and I checked out each link on the tie rod and drag link. I found 2 bad joints. after replacing them it was very hard to ge the death wobble to occur but is still did once in awhile. then I did a makeshift alignment of the front end and the death wobble was gone.

I know you know what you are doing but just to be complete make sure to check ball joints, wheel bearings and all link ends for loose hardware. Also knew someone that had death wobble because the tire came apart on the inside and there was loose tread in the tire, i guess from running low air pressure and the tire came apart.

Yeh I checked it over, no problems found. Before he brought it to my shop, It was at a very reputable spring and susp. shop and they gave up. That really suprised me. I suspect the panhard bar because there are no mount extensions on it and I wouldnt think kits would come wit a new longer bar would they? also not sure on the pitman arm, looks stock to me. Both of those would really throw the geometry off. I might order a stock pitman arm just to compare them if no one can check theirs for me. Or maybe find one in a lot somewhere to look at.

Is it bumb steer or death wobble. The uneven track bar and drag link would cause bump steer, but bump steer will start death wobble if something else is wrong. I used this thread to get rid of mine. I just adjusted toe out a little and it worked fine untill my unit bearing went up.

http://tjhardcore.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=512

Hope it helps

Well I beleive it to be DW. I liked ithe info on that link. It almost seems to me that someone just dropped in longer springs and shocks. The kind of lift just dont work. Everything else seems stock. Shouldnt it have gotten longer track bar/control arms? At least two of them? I need to find a local stocker to look at I suppose. My friend may want to buy a good quality kit and start over if thats what someone did, he's willing, but I hate to see him spend the $ if it's not needed. He's mostly street and mild trails, so stock springs/shocks could be a good option also. The spring shop gave it an alignment but may have use factory spec.s. That would surprise me though, They are good at what they do and deal with lifted vehicles all of the time. I'll call them tomarrow

if you need a TJ stocker to look at you could look at mine which is an 04. After 530 pm in Severn north of ft meade or daytime in Laurel south of meade. I actaully have parts of a 4" lift in my office at work minus the springs which are lost in transit if you needed to see and compare. Send me a PM

Death wobble , death shakes or whatever you wanna call it is very common on coil sprung vehicles . Especially the TJ .

I have a few suggestions for you to investigate . ........... off the top of my head .

1. Have the tires precision balanced to perfection . Good enough here just wont cut it and could exaggerate any other conditions .

2. The track bar and drag link MUST run as close to parallel with each other as possible , deviating too far from each other could easily be considered a serious steering kinematic flaw . Correct it by using the proper pitman arm and/or adjustable track bar , + track bar mount point bracket ( extension or drop )

3. Check the bushings on all the frontal control arms . Looking for dry rot or worn mounting holes and loose bolts .

4 . Examine all steering joints , excessive slop is unacceptable

5. CASTER ANGLE - this is very important ! The TJ leaves the factory with a caster spec of 7 degrees positive caster . Too much in most peoples opinion . Caster angle must go down as tire diameter goes up . ( mine is set at 4 degrees on 36"s )

6. The suspension and steering must be cared for through it's useful life expectancy . Being lubricated religiously and inspected before and after each trail ride .


7. Check the track bar bolts and mounting points / brackets . Each must be in relatively good condition and tight .

8. Have someone bounce the Jeep up and down while You carefully observe all steering and suspension components . Use a flashlight if needed and use your ears too .

Final remedy could be a bit of trial and error . Be patient and You'll figure it out .

Good luck

Sean

Very sound advice Sean!

Thanks .

I used to get DW in an old Ford F150 I used to have a few years back .

That was lifted 12" on 42"s . Death wobble on that was absolutely terrifying !

I've only had a very small amount of wobble on my TJ to speak of . To this day I'm the only one to do any wrenching on it . Shops in my area are kinda lost when it comes to long arms , proper caster etc ...........

It's as if they're intimidated by it . That could be a good thing i guess .

Sean

Yep, thats what happened. Just longer springs and some shocks. Not good.
Thanks for the advise

That does NOT look like the stock pitman arm to me.
When you lift a TJ, the factory toe setting don't cut it anymore. I set mine at my house and keep it toed in between 0" and 1/4".
Have someone turn the steering wheel back and forth while you look at the upper and lower track bar mounts. There should be no slop at either end.
The hardest thing to check will be the lower control arm bushings. There is no easy way to tell if they are shot.
If you need to adjust the castor, you'll have to get adjustable uppers.
Make sure the tires are balanced.
A TJ front end is touchy. One thing wrong can set off DW. If there is more than one thing, they will feed each other.
Make sure you check everything Shane mentioned. They all contribute to DW.
DW, been there done that.

Yeh, we found a stocker and one lifted pulled them near each other and found many things wrong. Including the trailing/control arm mounts removed and rewelded back on very poorly and in the wrong area! It's a mess. He's gonna keep it and slowly make the correct repairs. Thanks everyone.

dumb question but can someone define "death wobble"?

Death wobble isn't a tire out of balance that vibrates at higher speed or anything similar. Death wobble occurs for many reasons as already stated but it occurs without warning and usually as you get up to speed around 30-50 mph and suddenly there is a VIOLENT shaking, loud pulsating noise that sounds like there was catastrophic failure of a vital steering component. you instantly have to slow to a stop due to the intensity of the shaking and fear for your life. When it occurs you feel your heart jump out of your chest. Now multiply that by 10.

waldo27 wrote:

dumb question but can someone define "death wobble"?

John,

Remember the black tj Bill was working on a few weeks ago..That is Chris Taylor's jeep, he is a Raider on here.. He had the wobble.
In his case it was multiple front end parts with play.. Main culprit was the lower control arm bushings...

Dont worry John, give it a few trips to the rocks and the rubi will develop some of these Rock Stud Traits......


Chris... Sorry to use your jeep as an example. I havent wheeled with you yet but I know you are not afraid to wheel after seeing the TJ multiple times in the shop...

There is a lot of good advise being shown here, I for one picked up on e few things. In the same light as a death wobble, how about a swaying action. By this I mean the follwoing:

Your driving about 40 mph, on highway or back raods, allof a sutten, your Jeep begins to sweay to thr right and the left, you slow down to recover and it goes away. You pull over and your disconnects are hooked up, the sway bar is OK, the shock mounts are ok, the springs are in place and there just nothing to tell you there is something wrong. What is it?

Possible problem area, I think:

A) rear sway bar bushings

B) front sway bar bushings

C) Spring or shcok mounts displacements

D) Don't know

Can somebody help me?

The main cause of DW is due to the Ball Joints getting worn down and the control arm bushings beening worn out. Tierod ends being old. Also dont forget your alignment cause thats the number one cause of Newbie DW since most of them buy nice jeeps, but lift there rigs on the cheap. Sway Bar Discos help keep you from DW but many people run there jeeps up and down the road with them undone without issue as long as everything else is tight and you not running 6 inch super flexy springs.

UPNOVER wrote:

waldo27 wrote:

dumb question but can someone define "death wobble"?

Chris... Sorry to use your jeep as an example. I havent wheeled with you yet but I know you are not afraid to wheel after seeing the TJ multiple times in the shop...

Its OK. After I Replaced alot of the front I still got the wobble and found a lot of it was the tires. Got new ones and for one day.... No wobble.... then I went to RC and bent the drag link... that will be fixed next week.

The moral is it can be causes by multiple things

Thats why most will just tell you what you can do to keep it in control but in the end get used to it cause its going to happen and you will get better and figuring the causes as you become more acustom to your rig.