My Jeep rant and the inability to correct its issue

[tim87114]

Well here we are, month six, another $190.00 plus my time and labor wasted on my pristine 05 TJ. It's been to 5, yes that is right, 5 different shops. Two of them were Jeep only shops. Countless hours on the jeep forums and still, as of this morning. Death Wobble.

It's got, new control arm bushings, factory replacements, new steering stab rancho HD RS5000 model, new track bar "twice", new drag link, new tie rod, new tie rod ends. Checked for cracks, movement and play. No movement in ball joints and unit bearings are good. Axle ujoints don't have any play or make any noise. :cussing:
Alignment has been checked and rechecked by two different shops, I know, I'm anal about second guessing ones mechanical ability. Tires were ballanced, rotated, then road force ballanced, still nothing. New Shocks, basically mid to top of the line everthing you can get for a stock jeep.
Finally a new power steering box as of yesterday. OUCH! Still Death wobble. The entire front end is new.

This really pisses me off how many people have the exact same issues that drive jeeps, only difference is they usually have 4-6" lifts and 35" tires or just tons of miles and never did maintenance.
Mines stock and under 60k mostly freeway or city miles. Only good thing is, it's finally convinced my wife to finally after two years of me bishing, to go look at suburbans. :drool:

Well, if any one out there has any advice on what to check on the jeep for Death Wobble on an 05 TJ again here is an exact list of what has been done.
Alignment
Tire ballance
Track bar
Drag link
Tie Rod
Tie Rod ends
Steering Stab
Control arm bushings "all 8"
Steering box
rotated tires
tire pressure
shocks
Had shops inspect Unit bearings, balljoints, u-joints, frame and all mounting points.
My self spent several days under the jeep looking for a possible crack or play in the suspension or steering. The front end is perfect, no movement, no noise, nothing! :wtf:

Also if there is anyone on this forum in the Sacramento area whom has a jeep or ranger or such with 5 lug wheels and tires that would be willing to help me do an experiment to see if maybe tires are bad, I'd really appreaciate it. It's either I get this fixed or off to the dealer it goes on trade. Good thing is I bought it new during employee pricing as a demo vehicle so I got it for 7k off. Right now I'd make out really good on a trade even with it's steering issues.

[SpankyCSW]

Maybe the frame is out of square. :dunno:

[tranks]

how much caster does it have? if it within spec, is it on the edge of being with specs? sounds like you have the shopping cart effect going on to me.

[tim87114]

All below are in degrees
Front Actual Before Spec
Cross camber -.05 -.4 -1/1
cross caster 0.0 0.0 -7/.7
cross SA 1.0 0.9

Left
Actual before spec
Camber -.6 -.6 -.9/.4
Caster 6.8 6.8 6.0/8.0
TOE .18 -.06 .09/.21

Right
Actual before spec
Camber -.1 -.1 -.9/.4
Caster 6.7 6.7 6.0/8.0
TOE .12 -.02 .09/.21

[tim87114]

I really don't think it's anything in the front end steering or suspension. It's engery being stored somewhere, but where is the key to finding it.

[Chevytodd]

Ask your neighbors wife. Maybe she has some input.......lol

[Kazyn]

Ask your neighbors wife. Maybe she has some input.......lol

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[tranks]

:lol:


how are the tires? new/old/worn out?

i think your next step is trading tires with someone for a day. maybe you have a couple broken belts in the tires.

[tim87114]

Yea, I'm starting to wonder that too. Suposedly the Road Force Ballance is supposed to catch it. But, I don't know. I have two new tires and two older tires with wear on them. I've switched them around and no luck. But I have heard of people with tires and bad belts on the rear causes the issue on the front. So yea, I'm hoping to befriend some one to help me out.

As for the neighbor. :boobies: I'll go ask her when I get home just for the :boobies: factor. I don't think I'll get any better input but that will at least make me feel better.

[tim87114]

Also I wanted to point something out. I had a 2.5" Budget lift and 33x12.50x15 tires since about a month after I bought the thing. Here is the deal though with tires and "ballance"
The first set of "wheels and tires" were used. I'd say about 1/2 tread was left. I bought them from Les Schwab in Oregon. They pulled the tires off of a six lug chevy and they were not in the greatest shape. Threw them on a set of used black spoke wheels, I also bought from them and neary a death wobble.
I ran them for a good 2 years and never rotated them. Bad I know. But when it came to buying tires I could only afford 2 at a time. So I put new ones on the back and went about 6 mos and finally was able to buy another pair for the front.
In the last 5 years I never had any issues with this thing and wobble, even with crappy 33" tires.
Now I have the jeep at stock height, stock size tires and the entire front end is new and all in spec, I can't get rid of this evil gremlin. Worst part is the 4x4 shops say you either find it, or you don't. :guns:

[Kick]

brake rotors?

[bigred33]

jeepforum.com and search for death wobble, there's a zillion threads/solutions on it.

[76stepsidechevy]

We fought this for two years on my fathers 01 cherokee, only had about 70k on it when its started. Long story short it ended being tires, He had badly sagging rear spring so I found him so factory up country springs (1" lift over stock) and put some 1.5" coil spacers up front... he waited another year to replace the bald stock tires. he put some new 30x9.50s on it last week and no more death wobble.

[TheTexasOutlaw]

I would say its the tires. My friend had horrible death wobble in his 2000 jeep wrangler and he got new tires last month and its gone.

[94_c/1500]

The road force balancer is supossed to say if something is wrong, but it doesn't always. For instance, I just balanced the tires on my truck on a road force machine. I know my rims aren't in the best of shape. I put them on the machine and it never says anything about a bad tire or rim, but watching the tire spin on the maching I can see it.

What exactly are you calling death wobble? Is it just a vibration or is it a severe bad vibration? Can you describe it a a little better?

I don't know much about the new Jeeps, but aren't the front tires always engaged? Is it bad axle shaft joints?

[tim87114]

At 60-65mph any slight bump in the road causes the front end to shake violently. Basically the front wheels move side to side, or scrub the road. If you go to youtube and type in Death Wobble you will see what I'm talking about.
Anyhow, I have now officially replaced every single part of the suspension and steering system and it is still there.
However I did just confirm something yesterday.
I tow'd the jeep behind my truck without pads on the freeway where it most commonly occurs. I went on a 20 mile round trip and no DW or Shimmy at all.

Installed the pads and made the same loop. DW right at 60-65. So this tells me one caliper is sticky ever so slightly.
I'll replaced the calipers and let you guys know how it turns out. I'm so pissed at this jeep right now it's not even funny.

[TecRsq]

Throw the back tires on the front to see if one of the front tires was the culprit, if there is no problem at this point then address the possible tire problem. Another thing that I have come to distrust is the wheel balancing on a machine, they can get it close but not anything like balancing the tire/wheel setup while mounted on the vehicle.

The shop I have always used has only the experienced personnel balancing tires, they first use a razor to shave the tire completely true and round, then they take the tire/wheel and they balance it on a machine, then they finally mount the tire/wheel to the axle or spindle and fine tune the weights.

They do this by using an electrical motor driven wheel to spin the tire about 75mph while on the truck and the balancing tech then tunes the amount and position of the weights until there is no vibration whatsoever, I have had them perform this countless times on 1 ton Chevy's rolling on 35 and up tires, believe me when I say that they can tune it to where the bumper will not move at all with this rolling mass rotating at this high rate of speed.

I had a 87 K30 Dually on 6" Skyjacker springs and 36" Buckshot radials and once sat a cup of coffee on my bumper after he tuned my tires, the coffee didn't even hardly ripple as he spun the tires on that Dana 60 axle.

Would never have believed it if I had not seen it myself.

The death wobble is a hell of a problem and like many others you usually throw money at new parts only to find the very last thing purchased actually fixes the problem, hope ya find something to use from my previous experience bud.

FWIW, the shop is Weaver Brake and Tire in Marietta Georgia, someone on this board has definitely seen or heard of their work and I would be shocked to hear bad reports as I have never seen them disappoint me in 25 years.