Help! Bad Steering Issue

rescue7

rescue7

New member
Hey everyone,

I have an 09 JKUR with 30k miles. Been at the dealer having some work, and one issue is the steering. When on the highway, when hitting a bump, pothole, or imperfection in the road, the steering wheel starts shaking and vibrating like crazy! The right wheel will start making this thudding noise, and it's like I am about to lose control. I have to pull off to the side of the road.

They updated the steering stabilizer and bracket per TSB, and rebalanced all the tires. It is still doing it, and seems worse.

Does anyone have an idea of what can be wrong? No one knows what else to do. They said I could put on new tires, beefier Stabilizer to see if that would help. All of my ball joints, and steering components were checked, also. No issues there.

I appreciate any advice.

Christopher
 
ridg3runner

ridg3runner

-
At any time while they were trying to address the issue, did they retorque the front end components,ie the track bar? If it has worked loose it will just keep acting up until it is retorqued.

We Are Jeep..Resistance Is Futile..
 
rescue7

rescue7

New member
ridg3runner said:
At any time while they were trying to address the issue, did they retorque the front end components,ie the track bar? If it has worked loose it will just keep acting up until it is retorqued.

We Are Jeep..Resistance Is Futile..
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Track bar was not re-torqued. They said, they did not see anything that suggested it needed it. They were shaking it down, and moving stuff by hand, and said it didn't say it was loose.
 
jeeeep

jeeeep

Hooked
rescue7 said:
Track bar was not re-torqued. They said, they did not see anything that suggested it needed it. They were shaking it down, and moving stuff by hand, and said it didn't say it was loose.
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I would remove the bolt from the track bar, that will show you if it's actually been sliding you'll see the wear marks and also check the bolt size to the hole size you may need to get a slightly larger bowl to keep it tight in there, I believe 9/16... torque to spec. as tight as the bolts are on there, shaking it really won't show a whole lot - big difference 3000 pounds working on it versus the human body
 
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Devallee

Devallee

New member
Is the jeep lifted? Mine is at 3.5" and I was having death wobble too and couldn't figure it out. Put on an evo drag link flip kit to correct the steering geometry and adjustable lower control arms and haven't had the problem since.
 
rescue7

rescue7

New member
Devallee said:
Is the jeep lifted? Mine is at 3.5" and I was having death wobble too and couldn't figure it out. Put on an evo drag link flip kit to correct the steering geometry and adjustable lower control arms and haven't had the problem since.
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Just has the 10A springs and shocks on it.
 
rescue7

rescue7

New member
Devallee said:
Well then the best bet is to go down the list on the write up above and you should eventually figure it out. Welcome to the death wobble family haha
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Ha, yeah. I just had the springs and shocks put on at dealer. I am going back tomorrow to see if an alignment will correct any possible issues.
 
jeeeep

jeeeep

Hooked
I'm betting alignment is not off...

If they installed taller springs and shocks and did not loosen the track bar along with control arms to do the on ground shake down I would start there. It's not difficult to loosen the track bar shake the Jeep out and torque it back up.

Would also recommend replacing the factory 14mm track bar bolt with a 9/16th shoulder bolt - Synergy makes a LCA and Track bar bolt replacement kit - they replace all the full threaded bolts with shoulder bolts.

I think at one point Chrysler released a TSB on the track bar.
 
JKWrang

JKWrang

New member
I had what I thought was death wobble once and before I got the list checked off, I just rebalanced the tire that I thought was acting up. That's all it was for me. Was also the right DS tire. FWIW
 
OverlanderJK

OverlanderJK

Resident Smartass
Devallee said:
Is the jeep lifted? Mine is at 3.5" and I was having death wobble too and couldn't figure it out. Put on an evo drag link flip kit to correct the steering geometry and adjustable lower control arms and haven't had the problem since.
Click to expand...

So something was probably loose. I don't have a dragline flip and am at 4.5" of lift and don't have death wobble.
 
OverlanderJK

OverlanderJK

Resident Smartass
jeeeep said:
I'm betting alignment is not off...

If they installed taller springs and shocks and did not loosen the track bar along with control arms to do the on ground shake down I would start there. It's not difficult to loosen the track bar shake the Jeep out and torque it back up.

Would also recommend replacing the factory 14mm track bar bolt with a 9/16th shoulder bolt - Synergy makes a LCA and Track bar bolt replacement kit - they replace all the full threaded bolts with shoulder bolts.

I think at one point Chrysler released a TSB on the track bar.
Click to expand...

That's dumb. The factory bolt is the right size.

I was having death wobble a few weeks back. I bought the bolts and replaced them just to see for myself and guess what, didn't fix it. I put the factory bolts back in. If your bolts are torqued to spec you won't have an issue.
 
jeeeep

jeeeep

Hooked
OverlanderJK said:
That's dumb. The factory bolt is the right size.

I was having death wobble a few weeks back. I bought the bolts and replaced them just to see for myself and guess what, didn't fix it. I put the factory bolts back in. If your bolts are torqued to spec you won't have an issue.
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lol well, with an intelligent answer like that no need to offer you a lunchbox and helmet :beer:
 
rescue7

rescue7

New member
OverlanderJK said:
That's dumb. The factory bolt is the right size.

I was having death wobble a few weeks back. I bought the bolts and replaced them just to see for myself and guess what, didn't fix it. I put the factory bolts back in. If your bolts are torqued to spec you won't have an issue.
Click to expand...

Overland,

Would you recommend having them loosen the track bar bolts and re-torque to spec? They said, they would do an alignment check just to see if anything was out. If so, they could so an alignment.
 
JKWrang

JKWrang

New member
rescue7 said:
Overland,

Would you recommend having them loosen the track bar bolts and re-torque to spec? They said, they would do an alignment check just to see if anything was out. If so, they could so an alignment.
Click to expand...

A new stabilizer bar isn't gonna solve your issue so try that (quoted above). Try seeing if your tire is out of balance. Go off the death wobble thread and let us know what you found :)

Sent via secret squirrel underground network.
 
OverlanderJK

OverlanderJK

Resident Smartass
rescue7 said:
Overland,

Would you recommend having them loosen the track bar bolts and re-torque to spec? They said, they would do an alignment check just to see if anything was out. If so, they could so an alignment.
Click to expand...

When I first installed my lift I didn't touch the track bar before or after and didn't have death wobble. You could do that but go off the check list linked above and that should solve your issue.
 
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