I have a 08 with a 2.5 rough country puck lift. I have 34's without back spacing and my ride has been fine. I added a smittybuilt 8k winch with synthetic rope mounted on my factory bumper with a universal plate. I measured before and after the install and had less than 3/16 of a drop. Now i notice the steering is prone to shimmy. I have 68k on the jeep and had planned on replacing the ball joints and anything under there that was loose sometime in the near future with something better or atleast something that i could put a grease fitting on. Could the extra weight of the winch revealed my worn components or is it something else going on?

Thanks for any help or ideas!

 

It could be all of those things, none of those things or a combination of both. It sucks trying to discover what it is.

I have death wobble and replaced all the steering components, ball joints, tires, multiple alignments, etc... spent $1000s. Turns out I need to get a pair of lower adjustable control arms because my castor is off.

So I would get an alignment first, see what the readings are and go from there.

 

check the track bar bolts yet? need to be extremely tight 125 lbs pressure on those bolts or did you rotate the tires front to back ? you could have a improper balanced tire upfront !

 

Have you read my Diagnosing Death Wobble write-up thread and watched the YouTube videos?

Did you loosen all control arm and trackbar bolts for the lift install and wait to retorque them until after the full weight of the vehicle was back on the ground/springs at the new ride height to ensure that the rubber control arm and trackbar bushings are not preloaded/binding/twisting to the wrong ride height as they are pinched between the brackets?

 

I have looked up a few things on the death wobble but i am sure i missed some. I have been free of it for 50k miles so the only change was the winch. Maybe i need to tighten up everything since it has been such a long time ago when i put the lift on. Rotation and balancing is done every oil change thanks to good ole discount tire : ) i will start there first

 

As Planman noted, loosen and then retorque. Might be a good time to replace the CA and track bar hardware with 9/16. Minimal cost, and you confirm all the torque.

 

I have the same Jeep and ran into the same issues. No lift, installed a Smittybilt XRC MOD bumper with a Quadratec 11K winch. Between the bumper, parts, and winch I probably added 200 lbs on the front end. Shortly after that I started getting the wobble. Its been a combination of things that I dealt with that has helped reduce it, with the final death blow currently being brand new shocks, replacing the track bar bolts, new tires, and an alignment. I'm thinking once I replace the stock rear bumper with one that's a lot beefier it'll help balance things out front-to-back.