I'll have to chime in on checking the SS. I installed a heavy duty SS on my old TJ that had the death wobble and I never had a problem up to the day I sold it. Fortunately no problems so far with the JK

 

If you run a SEARCH you will find at least one thread where a member removed the SS with zero issues.

The SS can only cause DW if it is loose, the brackets are wallowed or it is damaged to allow some noticeable play. These conditions *could* cause it to act like worn ball joint. A simple test is to remove it.

Unfortunately in many cases shops take the lazy route which is to try dampen out DW with a new SS or dual SS in order to avoid troubleshooting the root cause. It's akin to shops adding 16+ oz of weights to balance a wheel instead of spinning the tire on the rim, looking for defects in the tire, testing a different tire.

 

Well for me, the fluid dripping out of the damper made it plain tosee that the thing was faulty. Think of what the damper does and it only makes sense that a bad one will cause dw.

 

See this is not correct. The broken stabilizer did not cause the DW. The DW broke the stabilizer. A steering stabilizer is so the steering wheel does not spin out of your hands from bump steer. Ever hit a pot hole without one? You can drive a Jeep with bump steer, it would be tiring but doable. It's near impossible to drive a Jeep with DW.

 

I have to go ahead and disagree with you on this. Normally I would say the SS doesn't cause DW and is in fact a mask of DW problems. However, I bashed my SS on a rock out wheeling and it's been leaking. I didn't think too much of it til I got DW a couple times. Took it to the dealer to get it replaced but the new one is on back order so I'm still with a bad SS. The catch is, I have not gotten any more DW since the first couple times over a month ago. I really think that as the SS has gotten progresively more worthless and leaked more oil, there was a "not so sweet spot" where the bad SS was actually causing problems. Just my

 

Hmmm... when you're turning and the wheels hit a bump, the turned wheel wants to lash back the other way (bump steer), does it not? W/o the steering dampener, the wheel would lash back the other way, and then react to that lashing about and lash the other way, and so on 'til the bump steer quickly develops into dw. I can see what edive's getting at. I think he's saying that the problem is that the JK's bump steer shouldn't be this bad. Bump steer shouldn't lead to something as bad as dw, with or w/o a dampener. That makes sense. A bad bump steer overworking the dampener, leading to dw...makes sense to me.

 

I've got the DW now and I've been to the shop 3 times and they say its the rear brakes. This post sounds like it hit the nail on the head. Is there a way to check the steering stabalizer by eye-balling it?

Or does anyone no a good shop in Norther Va with experience with Jeeps and death wobble?

Thanks!

ParkerF

 

You're arguing against your own point here.

 

A wallowed stabilizer bracket can cause dw?

 

The number one cause's of death wobble are a bent tie rod, worn tires or bent axle "C's" and finally a unsecured Trackbar.

The steering stabilizer is designed to dampen bump steer not prevent death wobble. If a steering stabilizer is damaged at the point it's leaking you can count on the tie rod being bent as well. If you have a leaky stabilizer that does not show any impact\trail damage you bet the death wobble caused the stabilizer to fail.

As for the tie rod believe me it does not take much to bend it either. And you do not have to bend it very far to introduce death wobble. Measuring your toe in will tell you if its bent or not. Do not rely on a "visual" inspection of the tie rod...

The correct fix for this is to by a nice heavy duty tie rod like the one from Rock Krawler and the Steering Stabilizer bracket relocation from Woods and a good aliment once it's all installed.

If you don't have time to do it right the first time, when will you find the time to do it right?