XJ Death Wobble Fixed w0ot!

[Black Dog]

My jeep is a 1999 XJ Sport, 2.5 inch Rusty's lift with 235/75 tires. I have had the death wobble pretty much ever since I did the lift kit but up until this summer it wasn't bad. This summer though it was super bad and did it every time I hit 50mph, so I was stuck doing my 15 mile highway commute to work at 40mph for a while. But I got it fixed this weekend!

My front tires had a lot of wear on the outer edge of the tread, so I knew it was way out of alignment. It was bad enough that I wanted to replace those front tires for sure, so I used that as an excuse to replace them all with a more aggressive tread. Now instead of lame Medalist Sport Kings I have Maxxis Bighorn MT's! They are way better than those stupid Sport Kings with my little bit of driving I've done on them so far.

But anyway, with just new tires and an alignment, my death wobble appears to be fixed. Everything was good at 50 miles an hour, so I inched it up to 55, then 60, then 70, and it stayed smooth the whole way. I drove about a hundred miles testing every possible scenario I could think up, increasing speed, decreasing speed, cruising at a constant speed, going around curves, going over bumps, and everything, and so far so good! So if anybody else is having these problems, the fix might not be as complicated as you might think.

 

[BIGdaddy]

:victory:

 

[GTABurnout]

I never completly fixed mine. Currie steering, new track bar, alingment (professional, and backyard) nothing worked. I gave up and sold the truck. I am glad you fixed yours.

 

[Maximus Ram]

Still chasing mine...only stuff left is adjustable upper contol arms and bushings and drag link. If that doesn't solve it, I might have to shoot the dam thing:ar15::ar15:

 

[threepiece188]

I have a leaf sprung full size Wagoneer that had it. Truck was completly rebuilt (by me) including new leaf springs. After putting about 25000 miles after the restoration the wobble started. I noticed that it was worse as the weather got warmer and was unusable at temps above 80*. I also noticed that it was worse after going through a wobble episode, in other words once it wobbled, it would easily happen again soon. This led me to suspect that some rubber component was to blame. Rubber gets softer as the temp goes up and the violent wobbling generates heat in any rubber joint in the system. I found the spring eye bushings to be worn out on my 2 year old leaf springs. These were the stationary bushings(not the shackle end). I believe wobble is often a result of a combination of conditions. I have 31" tires and extended shackles on the front of that truck which changes the caster angle. I think it is possible that those worn out bushings might not have been a problem if the truck was stock.

Dan

 

[Black Dog]

I noticed that it was worse as the weather got warmer and was unusable at temps above 80*.

Mine only did it in the summer too, never ever in the winter which is a relief because I would have never kept control of it on ice. I figured maybe I had a bad steel belt or something in a tire. I noticed it did it worse when I had the tires inflated to the max than when they were slightly under inflated, but I attributed that to the lesser air pressure not translating the vibration to the rest of the vehicle kind of the same way that over inflated tires make for a rougher on-road ride.

I'm still thinking that I'm going to keep replacing the stock parts with ones designed for my amount of lift. I've been told that above 2.5 inches of lift that you need to get brake line extensions and do other stuff, and below 2.5 inches you don't. I did 2.5 inches exactly, so I'm playing it safe. This is as long as the budget allows of course, dropping $700+ on new tires and alignment was a pretty big hit. My wife just couldn't understand how jeep tires costed twice as much as her car tires.

 

[Jeffb79]

Glad yours was an easy fix.
I had mine balanced and aligned twice. Replaced steering components. Adjusted caster numerous times. Only thing I had left to replace were ball joints and unit bearings. The tires had no play in them and didn't show any symptoms of bad unit bearings or ball joints. Spent yesterday replacing all the ball joints, unit bears and axle shaft u joints. No more wobble, runs great up to atleast 90. The lower ball joints were trashed and one unit bearing was shot. I've been tracking this one down for about 6 months now.