lkbdxb

Hey Guys,

So here's my Death Wobble tale:

I have an 09 JK which i bought second hand a few months ago, which had 2.5" Mopar lift and 33" Mickey Thompson MTZ, with a Mopar Steering Stabilizer.

After driving it a couple of months, i started getting the death wobble, but it only occured every now and then, as any JK owner i thought to myself i need a bigger lift, and bigger wheels, so i got a 3" Lift by Rancho, wobble was pretty much gone. A month later, i got 35" Mickey Thompsons, and after a couple of weeks, during which i have been to the desert, and there was an "accidental" jump involved, I started getting the worst death wobble of my life.

Now, i got the car serviced at Jeep yesterday, and i told them to check for any loose bolts or screws in the front end, and they told me everything was in mint condition, and that the ball-joints were intact.



Here are my questions:

-Do you guys think the Wobble can be due to my tires? (I had them balanced when i put them on the car 1 month ago) // Either balancing or defective tire

-Can it be due to my steering stabiliser? Which is a Mopar, and looks a little rusty to me

-Should i trust Jeep Service Center's opinion on the condition of my front end, or should i have it checked by someone else? I feel like they told me it was intact as the easy way out of it, for them, and also because the guarantee is void due to the mods.


Looking forward to your input.

Thanks

lkbdxb

And here's a picture btw.

fultonromero12

I do not think its your tires. Unbalanced tires will have a shimmy every time you drive not just every now ands then. The fact that you said the wobble went away after the lift makes me suspicious. It leads me to think something was lose before and it was either replaced or tightened during the install of the lift. Since the ball joints are ok I would start off by looking at the trac bar. Did you replace the front end bolts with the grade 8 one that are a better fit? I'm thinking the holes are wallowed out and when the lift was done it was torqued down but the wheeling ultimately loosened the trac bar since the hole has been widened out.I would steer( no pun) you away from just replacing the steering stabilizer bc those only mask the real problem. I ran without mine for a while just to see if I had fixed my DW.keep us updated

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familytime

What do they mean by ball joints are intact?Did they measure the play?

planman

No. You can't trust the service center's opinion.

Follow the link below in my signature to the Diagnosing DW thread.

Watch the 2 YouTube videos in post #3.

Read posts #1 and #2.

lkbdxb

Thanks for the feed guys,

I haven't replaced the bolts by grade 8 ones, but i will asap

You're right as well, that makes sense that while installing the lift they torqued out the bolts which allowed for the wobble to go away, and since i was wheeling hard i wouldn't be surprised if something got loose down there.

I'm going to take my rig to the place i bought the lift from, make them check everything out from A to Z. And Hopefully after that it will be history!

I'll keep you guys posted

planman

Unfortunately, it is extremely rare that a shop that incompetently installed a lift will be competent enough to inspect and diagnose the source(s) of the problem.

lkbdxb

I bought the lift from a shop and had it installed in another garage, which i thought were competent, but i guess i was wrong. The shop's garage though works 90% of the time on Wranglers with lifts, so they should know better.

lkbdxb

Planman, I checked out your links, They're of great help.

I went to my garagist, and he should me that there was considerable play on both ends of my tie rod as well as on both ends of my drag link, at least, 3-5mm play up and down at the end of each component. This could/should be the source of my problem. My track bar on the other hand, looks ok, but still i want to have it checked properly and won't know until the end of the week.

What should i do next? Obviously i have to change the parts, but are there any aftermarket brands you would recommend for these items or should i just go with new stock parts? Clearly i don't want the problem to occur again, and also, i don't have millions to spend.

Looking forward to your response,

planman

You can replace the drag link and tie rod with factory replacements, or you can upgrade.

If you upgrade, a good bang for the buck would be the Synergy tie rod and drag link. They are affordable and easy to adjust.

The drag link can be run in either the stock position or flipped to the top of the knuckle. You'd want it in the stock position.