First of all I'd like to thank a few people for really helping me out. NITRORC pilot for the Skyjacker fixed lower control arms (LCA), wayolife for this site and his numerous write ups I followed step by step, and to everyone here that helped me with advice on what to do and how to go about doing it.

So here's what I did to create the problems:

I'm running 35's with a 2.5" Rough Country BB (Mistake #1) with 2.2 shocks. I installed this myself with the help of a few Toyo friends, all of which had pretty good mechanical know-how, but never worked on a Jeep before. Therefore we tightened everything while the Jeep was still up in the air (Mistake #2). We adjusted the toe and straightened out the wheel as best we could and everything was 'cool' for a couple months.

The first thing I noticed was the white-knuckled driving characteristics of the Jeep began getting worse and worse. Then came the wobble... yes, the dreaded death wobble. Looked under the rig and noticed that the stock steering stabilizer was blown, and therefore replaced it with the Rough Country dual system. That solved the wobble piece for a few days but it eventually came back - yes, I put a band-aid over the problem.



So here's what I did to make my budget boost street worthy.

$30 for a set of Skyjacker fixed LCA's from a 4" kit bought NITRORC pilot. These are about 1/4" longer than stock and I was able to get them both on in less than an hour. Before torquing everything down, I loosened all the bolts on the front suspension then lowered it so that everything would have the Jeeps full weight on it. Then I proceded to jiggle, bounce, kick, bounce some more then tightened them all to specifications. Goddamn, 125ft/lbs is A LOT! After a dozen of those, my arms were like lifeless hamhocks.

I then took her for a quick spin and noticed that my steering was off center.. strange, so I pulled over and a quick half turn and we were good to go. Could that be due to everything being out of wack before?

Anyways, WOW what a tremendous difference! I took the Jeep down my favorite fire trail where I know which dips and bumps cause DW, and it's gone! Also gone is the flighty steering at highway speeds. The Jeep definitely does not wander as much as it did before.


So to all of you out there with just a BB and running 35's, do yourself a favor and get a set of LCA's!! And to all of you who are getting DW, retorque everything, it works! The folks on this forum who constantly reply with "get LCA's to control the flighty steering", or "retorque everything to get rid of the wobble" arent talking trash, they speak the truth!!

Thank you all again..

 

Good to hear you got it fixed!

The budget boost with stick arms do effect the caster. So adjustable arms certainly help

 

He said he put fixed arms though from another aftermarket lift so apparently he got lucky on the length and caster setting?

 

Basically. By putting on the longer lowers he is getting the caster back in the right direction. While it won't be dialed in perfect. Its obviously better than it was, and probably good enough to leave.

 

Something that probably wouldnt be a bad idea for me to do then, Ive got a 2.5" coil lift on stock arms, definitely can be flighty at times but im just trying to save up for an all new LA lift

 

Yep, it was all luck that the arms moved my caster just enough to make things right again. It was a $30 gamble I was willing to take, and it worked out great!

 

Good to hear bud, i looked up those arms on quadratecs site and they say theyre for 2.5"-5" lifts, so theyre definatly a step in the right direction for caster, then a set of uppers will fine tune.

 

BTW theyre only $143 from quadratec for those interested in them

 

So after installing a lift we're supposed to tighten and torque all the suspension bolts with the Jeep back on all fours? I could have sworn I read on here that they should be torqued before lowering the Jeep back down. That sucks because I just did the opposite.

 

yea you wanna torque everything on the ground.. something to do with preloading the bushings....


not sure.. but I did it on the ground and had/have no issues.