Alignment help/Death Wobble

Bumping this back up for ya after DW reared it's ugly head on my WJ last week.
My 04 WJ out of the blue began to have a severe steering wheel shimmy while driving w/o applying brakes. Especially 20-45 MPH. Bad enough that I pulled over and hit all the lugs with a 4 way. Got to work, inspected everything suspension and steering related- nothing loose/worn/etc. Had new tire balance verified, all good too. Drove it home that day without issue.
Next day, same thing. Intermittent DW. Like BAD DW. Bad enough to have to pull over to stop it. Checked everything again- can't find anything.
Except, this time the LF brake was smoking..
Long post short, the LF caliper was intermittently sticking, causing all kinds of weird vibes and steering issues. Swapped out the front calipers and after another 300 miles of driving, it's smooth as the top of your foot.
In my case the caliper was locking up badly enough to cause the wheel to attempt to lock up. I bet with the AWD aspect of the WJ, this was makingit even worse. In my 24 years of working on Jeeps, I have never seen this cause DW.
Maybe something to think about @skyhighZJ ?
 
My 2003 Dodge Ram 2500 Hemi had DW when I bought it new. I took it to the dealer several times but they couldnt figure out what the issue was. I bought a set of 295/70/17 Nitto terra grapplers and Ive never had DW with that truck again and I still own it now. Im on my 3rd set of those tires but now Im running 285/65/20s. Im not sure why it went away unless it was the width or weight of the new tires.
 
skyhighZJ said:
Mine has been doing good since last post. I did change all the calipers to the newer Akebono style after I got it cause the 99-01 style calipers are known to cause problems.
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The teaves style brakes suck. If I planned on keeping mine longer then I would do the swap. Now my steering box is wore out after 220k miles. About to drop in a used lower mileage one. Hopefully that cures my shimmy.
 
NickMaul said:
The teaves style brakes suck. If I planned on keeping mine longer then I would do the swap. Now my steering box is wore out after 220k miles. About to drop in a used lower mileage one. Hopefully that cures my shimmy.
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I found some used ones at a salvage yard on an ‘03 model and they were in great shape. If anything else they would give me a core charge to take to the parts store to exchange for new/reman replacement. I think I paid $40 for all 4 calipers. Brought them home and one of the rear calipers was froze so traded it out for one at the parts house. Put new pads and rotors on it and they did just fine. My thought process was I had less invested than the core charge for one caliper from the parts house.
 
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