Flexible track bar

77GreenMachine

77GreenMachine

Phillip Talton
Joined
Mar 30, 2010
Location
Trinity, NC
5B6A163D-A25B-4538-B296-FF5AD2B1BD0C.jpeg
So I recently picked up a TJ I’ve been tinkering on. It was once built up, but was mostly returned to stock. For now I intend to keep it that way, as a family cruiser for nice weather, and eventually give to my daughter.

I needed to replace the track bar cause the axle side bushing was shot. A quick google search and I bought one from PartsGeek.com. I’ve never bought anything from them but figured I’d give them a shot. That was a mistake. It delivered Wednesday and I finally put it on today and I still had death wobble.
I got my daughter to work the wheel while I looked for what’s moving and causing it, and it appeared that the bend in the track bar near the diff was actually bending more and moving upward. I went and got my wife and asked her to look and she said maybe it looked like it was bending but she wasn’t sure.
I wound up putting a piece of tape at the ends of the bend, and sure enough when you turn left, the tape drops and when you turn right it tightens back up and actually stretches a little. Brand new (supposedly) out of the box, and it’s some cheap garbage inferior metal that is flexing.
Won’t make that mistake again. I will try to return it, and let y’all know how it goes.

Here’s a pic in case anyone didn’t understand what I meant. I reckon if anyone is ever chasing down a death wobble problem, make sure your track bar isn’t bending.
 
Did you do the same test with the stock track bar? Were the front wheels on the ground or off the ground (there's a huge difference in steering loads)? I'm not the slightest bit surprised that you have compliance with an offset bent track bar, but I would tend to think that your death wobble is being caused by something else with a lot more compliance than the track bar (unless the new track bar has really soft durometer bushings or something).
If it's a TJ, it's plenty old enough to have a variety of things that could need addressing in the suspension/steering/tires/wheels.
 
Last edited:
Fabrik8 said:
Did you do the same test with the stock track bar? Were the front wheels on the ground or off the ground (there's a huge difference in steering loads)? I'm not the slightest bit surprised that you have compliance with an offset bent track bar, but I would tend to think that your death wobble is being caused by something else with a lot more compliance than the track bar (unless the new track bar has really soft durometer bushings or something).
If it's a TJ, it's plenty old enough to have a variety of things that could need addressing in the suspension/steering/tires/wheels.
Click to expand...

You’re not wrong. The bushing at the axle end has more move than than I deem acceptable, in addition to the flexing. All the TREs are good, no play, ball joints are good, tires are evenly worn. It doesn’t pull left of right, but around 45 if you hit a bump or are going dead straight and there’s no “load” on the steering it will start.

It could use an alignment, and I need to check the caster since this axle came from another Jeep, but I have to fix the known issues one at a time before I go down the death wobble rabbit hole.
 
No load wobble definitely sounds like a castor/camber issue to me.
But I drive a Samurai where death wobble can come from a worn out $11.00 felt seal.
 
Do a tape measure alignment check just to see how close it is. I think excess toe in causes it more often than it gets credit for. If you are at 1/4" or more, I'd bet that's a contributing factor.
 
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