First post -- death wobble

wcchandler

Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2012
Location
Raleigh
I have the wonderful death wobble on my 08 Rubicon. Everything seems stock from what I can tell (bought it used). I followed this video -- -- to try and figure out where the problem was. I noticed it catching/knocking the hardest around the drag link end and pitman arm. I replaced the entire drag link and ends/ball joints with one from synergy. I took it in to justtires to get aligned and have them double check everything. They said it was good. Drove it home and I still have the death wobble. It's not as bad as before, but still annoying and worth trying another piece. Could it be the pitman arm? What I'm reading online -- it doesn't really seem like that could be it. Almost like the pitman arm is either completely broken or not at all. No in-between. Could the nut on the bottom be lose? I broke my torque wrench on the DL install so I haven't gotten around to check that yet. Could it be the knuckles? If it was the track bar, would I feel it all the way up there? U joints seem fine, so does the tie rod and stabalizer...
 
I replaced every moving part under the front of my XJ while trying to chase down DW. Ended up being the track bar bolt loaction on the axle was wallered out and had play. Pull the track bar and check the mounting brackets for the same! Good luck.
 
Ball joints will cause dw as well. Just something to check. Basically any moving joint on the front suspension of a Jeep if worn can cause dw. If your in the higher mileage range with factory ball joints then I'd say that's the cause.
 
Are you sure its death wobble and not a shimmy? I think many would agree that death wobble would be more than just "annoying".
 
06redwagon said:
Are you sure its death wobble and not a shimmy? I think many would agree that death wobble would be more than just "annoying".
Click to expand...

LOL I'll second this. My DW was undriveable when it kicked in around 35mph. The tires shook back and forth about a foot in either direction, the hood would hit the fenders from all the twist, and it would shake the teeth out of your head.
 
06redwagon said:
Are you sure its death wobble and not a shimmy? I think many would agree that death wobble would be more than just "annoying".
Click to expand...

Fair point. I gave seen a lot of talk lately about death wobble that are actually about little vibrations, unbalanced tires, etc. If it doesn't feel like a tire is falling off, it's not death wobble. Death wobble is obvious and frightening to people in other cars around you.

That said, I'd check the unit bearings, ball joints, and panhard ends... But honestly wouldn't expect any but the hardest-driven 08 jk to need panhard bushings at this point in its life.
 
The Planman video is a great resource for diagnosing worn suspension components.

Assuming you have OEM suspension parts my next step would be the trackbar. Check for oval-ed holes on the frame and axle brackets. Then check for worn out bushings. There is a known "problem" with the OEM bolts being sized slightly smaller than the bushings and they also are not shouldered bolts. This little bit of size difference can cause movement. If the bolts, brackets and bushings appear to be in good shape next step would be to torque to spec and road test.
 
Yeah it was originally death wobble. Now I think it's just a shimmy. Could be bad balance/rotate. Only seems to happen around 55mph (+/- 5mph). I haven't hit the highway for a long distance yet, so I can't say for sure.

I did crawl underneath and tried to take some videos. It looks like the trackbar is flexing/bending. The mounts and bushings look alright, but... I don't know about the bar itself. Now that I just got paid this month, I'm pretty anxious to think it's this and drop the $200 on a new one. Don't want to make a bad call though if it's not this and could easily last another 20k miles.

Not the best of videos but they show it off in a couple 2 second sections:



 
The OEM trackbars are typically very strong. Have you checked the torque on the bolts?

What size tires are you running?
 
There's nothing wrong with the track bar itself. What you're describing sounds like an out of balance tire.
 
Drove the long way in to work today. Definitely not DW anymore. So that's awesome...

It's really feeling like out of balance tires now. I'm going to take it in to justtires over the next couple days. Seems plausable too if I knocked a weight off when playing around.

I'm wondering if my bad ends weren't *that* bad and just the bad balance was making it seem worse.
 
Sounds like you've got it figured out. Those tires can really fool you sometimes.
 
Well this sucks. Looks like I won't be replacing the trackbar any time soon. Balance and rotate did the trick. Let's see if I can tear some thing up in Uwharrie this month. :D

Thanks a lot for the insight dudes! Greatly appreciated!
 
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