Well, I took my Jeep out to a local ORV park after installing a Metalcloak Gamechanger lift and some new tires. While I was out I managed to damage my steering stabilizer which had to then be removed. After this was done I noticed a shimmy or wobble that would occur after hitting a bump in the road that only went away after slowing down significantly. I ended up having to drive home this way about 50 miles and had it occur several times more though I kept my speed low. Is this the notorious death wobble or just a shimmy caused by the lack of a stabilizer on the JK?

 

Your ss isn't the issue. When you trashed your ss you bent something as well.

A good jeep will drive the same with out a ss.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk 2

 

Thats what makes this weird, the jeep drives just fine untill I hit a bump at speed then it simply amplifies till I slow down. The rock that bent the stabilizer only other piece that was struck was the Tie Rod which I checked to still be straight at the point of impact. The jeep was fully extended with it's suspension as I was high centered on the transmission pan skid plate. Here is a bit more info.

I have 37 inch tires and wheels that are not yet balanced, these weight around 120 lbs a piece
The actual impact was on the stabilizer then the axel itself, no other steering components actually touched the rock
The control arms and track bar were replaced when I installed my lift with something much stronger though stock bolts were used
None of the bolts appear to be loose in any way and still have their 125lbs of torque on them

This issue only appeared when I fully removed the stabilizer to have full motion of steering, there was no issue until it was completely off. Do you think I may have damaged the ball joints on the tie rod or is it just a combination of having unbalanced tires and the other issues without the stabilizer that are causing the problem?

 

I would clean underneath and look for any damage. Regardless of its severity look at it very close and repair. Retorque all bolts on suspension as it is new and put on a bilstein steering stabilizer.

It is not DW. DW is really violent and comes on immediately. I had a wobble that would shake drinks out of there cups while in the console. It was tire related. Good luck. Let us know how it turns out. Hopefully minor.

 

On closer inspection this morning I found that my front track bar has about 1 mm of play with the factory bolts at the correct tension. I am going to replace the bolts with the Northridge 4x4 death wobble kit and the stabilizer you suggested. Nothing else looks to have any damage or be the cause of the wobble.

 

Yep.... I was going to say the SS was probably masking the small shimmy you had. Def get that track bar fixed. Full DW can reek havoc on the front end.

 

As others have said, one of two things happened. Either you had a previous problem that the SS was masking or you damaged something else when you bashed the SS.

That was the start of my death wobble ordeal (still struggling, unfortunately). Find an experienced member nearby and go through planman's list with them very carefully.

BTW, if you think you're going to sh*t your pants and other cars start swerving out of the way, it's death wobble.

 

Well after installing both the Death Wobble Fix kit from Northridge 4x4 and a new stabilizer from Bilstein I am happy to say that the Death Wobble is gone. The interesting part of this who ordeal was the lower track bar mount holes were significantly larger than the bolts being used, around 3mm larger though they were not warped or appeared to have any damage, I think that at the factory something may have happened and they simply super torqued down the original track bar.

Thanks for all the suggestions!