JK yeti

Alright thanks, i'll check those out and report back tomorrow night

Jhouse93

Hey man, I had my first ever episode of DW today after going offroad. Just wanted to thank you, your videos are exactly what I need. Ill be going through your list tomorrow checking everything oit and finding my problem. I wouldn't know where the hell to start if you werent on top of it and sharing all your valuable info

JK yeti

First thing to check would be your trackbar bolts thats common when offroading

Jhouse93

Well I checked it all out today. Looks liike my draglink ends are bad. Ball joints are wearing. I replaced my tracbar bolts with the grade 8 larger diameter bolts. getting the evo drag lonk flip kit. (I figure it will get me new drag link end, and a upgrade for my money) plan on waiting a little while on ball joints. I think theres a few more miles in em. And I have a question.for you planman.

My tie rod, im gettin a little movement in the ends and a small amount of knocking. Is that normal for the tierod? Or do I need a new one of those to?

planman

You shouldn't have up-and-down movement in the tie rod ends--only rotational movement. There shouldn't be a knock. So, you will eventually want to replace the ends or upgrade the tie rod.

Jhouse93

Well bye up and down I mean rotational...I replaced the tracbar bolts and after driving on it for a few days they have helped a lot it seems...im slowly upgrading my suspention components

Davoarts

My DW story:

My jeep only has 38k on it and stock tires/wheels with a leveling kit only, I got death wobble after only a few runs on some washboard roads and a little bit of rough dirt roading while hunting. I brought it to the dealer and they told me it was bad tires that blew my damper and although they replaced the damper and tried to sell me new tires I was adamant that they check the ball joints, which they said were fine. What I discovered myself is that I really did have play in the ball joints and all tre's. Instead of taking it back to the dealer, I just bought upgraded parts and replaced them myself in a couple days. The first thing I did was upgrade the front end bolts and I noticed that the TB bushing did have grooves inside from the factory bolts, but the bracket holes were not elongated (I made sure to torque it correctly after the leveling kit, so the brackets and bushings are fine). After that I changed all ball joints and the tie rod and drag link at both ends. What led up to the DW I can assume is that one of my drag link ends was going out as I started hearing a clunk over bumps long before it escalated into full blown DW. By the time I knocked out the issue though, a lot of the parts had play in them (drag link end being the worst) from only a few but serious cases of DW. On top of that, I can feel very slight give in the drivers side hub assembly as well as a slight play at the steering box (not sure if it is damaged splines or the box itself, or normal clunky steering)

Now, Chryslers defense is that all solid axles get death wobble, my concern is that because of the engineering slips and cheap parts Jeep/Chrysler/whoever used, more DW instances occur and on lower mileage vehicles which is why they are seeing so many complaints. Unacceptable. My 1988 suzuki samurai made it 25 years and almost 200k miles before DW occurred from worn kingpin bearings.

planman

DW is rare. I'm sure that less than a fraction of 1% of owners experience full on, violent DW.

Still, I share your frustration that the stock ball joints are crap, Chrysler does not properly train their dealer techs, and retorquing bolts needs to be part of regular service & maintenance.

phantom lord

Planman, just wanted to say thanks for all of the info that you have shared! I had death wobble more times than anybody would like to have. I had to replace my front track bar so, i upgraded to an adjustable one. i also purchased the northridge bolt kit, new stabilizer, and new lower front adjustables. It has been a very unpleasant experience dealing with dw. It has made me very paranoid. Is it just cheap parts being used or product of design? I had a tj prior and never had as many troubles as i am having with this particular jeep with such low mileage. Anyway, I didn't mean to ramble on about my troubles. Your write up was very helpful.

Thanks

planman

Thank you.

My opinion is that with stock jeeps that are not heavily offroaded, it is usually due to improperly torqued trackbar bolts. Several guys with new, stock jeeps have reported that when taking a torque wrench to their brand new JK, the bolts were undertorqued from the factory (or from the dealer pre-delivery inspection).

If the bolts are undertorqued, the fact that the bolts are smaller than the bracket bolt holes leads to the stock steering stabilizer eventually failing and damage of other components.

If the stock setup is properly torqued and maintained, DW is very unlikely to happen.

With lifted JKs, my opinion is that it is due to improper installation (i.e. pre-loaded/binding/twisted bushings from not being torqued in a neutral position) and lack of maintenance.

The stock ball joints are weak. They wear out early with any DW, heavy offroading, and/or big tires.