Death Wobble - Caused by Steering Box?

Benito

Benito

Caught the Bug
Helped a friend swap his axles with Currie RJ60s F/R, we buttoned everything up and left the steering stabilizer off because we needed to modify the bracket. Test drove the jeep and got full fledged death wobble while braking and hitting a bump. Turned around to make sure everything was tight. We found that the adjustment sleeve wasn't tightening around ball joint end on his synergy draglink, and found that we didn't tighten the jam nut on his adjustable track bar. We fixed both of those issues and went for another test drive w/o the stablizer, got full fledged death wobble again. We installed the stabilizer and it definitely dampened the death wobble, to the point where the wobble only happens on the bump and shortly after, if you were to drive the jeep for the first time you would only think that the bump in the road was really bad. My friend doesn't remember if that was the way the jeep drove before the axle swap or not, so we kept looking which led us to find some slight play in the steering gear.


is the small amount of play in the steering box shown in the video enough to cause death wobble?
 
R

rockwell

Member
Interested to see replies to this. This summer I installed new Prorocks and new tie rod/drag link. I left out the stabilizer because it’s “not needed” on a properly set up front end. Got really bad death wobble, installed the stabilizer to eliminate it. Only thing that wasn’t brand new was the steering box, I’ll be replacing that to go hydro over the winter.
 
WJCO

WJCO

Meme King
That rotational play looks normal to me, but you really need to look at or feel the input and output of the steering gear at the same time to really check for play. They should move at about the exact same time. Are you 100% sure both track bar bolts are torqued to 125 ft lbs and no play at track bar ends? And I assume new ball joints were installed with the axle? But, yes if play in box was bad enough, it could cause DW, just not really common.
 
wayoflife

wayoflife

Administrator
Staff member
Assuming the axle is brand new, I'm gonna have to bet the problem he's having is related to the track bar. Can't tell what brand it is but if I could guess, it's JKS or maybe Metalcloak.
 
wayoflife

wayoflife

Administrator
Staff member
JKDream said:
Yup. My old box before I went to hydro was way sloppier and I didn't have any wobbles. Just really loose steering.

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To be fair, there is an adjustment nut on the steering box that you can tighten and it will offer more resistance. People used to do this back in the day thinking it was a fix but just like a steering stabilizer, all it did is mask the real problem. Actually worse, it'll also caused the steering gear to wear out prematurely.
 
L

laffman

Member
Check that all the steering and suspension bolts and nuts are torqued to spec. The metal stretches. I chased this problem for over a year on my '90 YJ, checking steering box, tie rod ends, re-balancing tires, etc. Finally someone told me to check the leaf spring u-bolts, which were on for a few years and were re-torqued a few times after installing. Sure enough, all 4 front u-bolts were at least 10 ft-lbs out of torque. Torqued them back up and no more wobble. I recheck everything on the suspension and steering every spring when I pull it out of storage. I know there's no u-bolts on coil springs, but double check all the steering and suspension nuts and bolts again.
 
jeeeep

jeeeep

Hooked
did you leave all the suspension bolts loose and give the Jeep a jounce with wheels on the ground before torqueing all the bolts?

How much lift and does it have a drag link flip installed?
 
wayoflife

wayoflife

Administrator
Staff member
jeeeep said:
did you leave all the suspension bolts loose and give the Jeep a jounce with wheels on the ground before torqueing all the bolts?
Click to expand...

That's a good point but only really necessary when working with clevite bushings as they would get loaded up. Assuming the Jeep has Johnny Joints or the like, it wouldn't be necessary. In any case, that would only contribute to a rougher ride - not death wobble.

How much lift and does it have a drag link flip installed?
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I'd be interested in knowing as well but lift height and a lack of a drag link flip won't cause death wobble.
 
TRLJNKY

TRLJNKY

New member
wayoflife said:
To be fair, there is an adjustment nut on the steering box that you can tighten and it will offer more resistance. People used to do this back in the day thinking it was a fix but just like a steering stabilizer, all it did is mask the real problem. Actually worse, it'll also caused the steering gear to wear out prematurely.
Click to expand...
Ive also seen where the steering box adj nut was over tightened and it caused the box to lock up. Id be very careful doing this. It was on a HMMWV but still the principle is the same. Makes me weary of trying this

aka cavfighter
 
wayoflife

wayoflife

Administrator
Staff member
TRLJNKY said:
Ive also seen where the steering box adj nut was over tightened and it caused the box to lock up. Id be very careful doing this. It was on a HMMWV but still the principle is the same. Makes me weary of trying this

aka cavfighter
Click to expand...

Oh, I can only imagine. That nut is really not for adjusting. Like most things on any vehicle, it needs to be tightened to the correct torque spec during assembly and that's it.
 
Benito

Benito

Caught the Bug
WJCO said:
That rotational play looks normal to me, but you really need to look at or feel the input and output of the steering gear at the same time to really check for play. They should move at about the exact same time. Are you 100% sure both track bar bolts are torqued to 125 ft lbs and no play at track bar ends? And I assume new ball joints were installed with the axle? But, yes if play in box was bad enough, it could cause DW, just not really common.
Click to expand...

wayoflife said:
Assuming the axle is brand new, I'm gonna have to bet the problem he's having is related to the track bar. Can't tell what brand it is but if I could guess, it's JKS or maybe Metalcloak.
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It’s a Metaljoke track bar, we used his brand new torque wrench but I’ll take mine today to make sure we’re putting 125 ftlbs on them. I have a brand new JK trackbar we can swap in

laffman said:
Check that all the steering and suspension bolts and nuts are torqued to spec. The metal stretches. I chased this problem for over a year on my '90 YJ, checking steering box, tie rod ends, re-balancing tires, etc. Finally someone told me to check the leaf spring u-bolts, which were on for a few years and were re-torqued a few times after installing. Sure enough, all 4 front u-bolts were at least 10 ft-lbs out of torque. Torqued them back up and no more wobble. I recheck everything on the suspension and steering every spring when I pull it out of storage. I know there's no u-bolts on coil springs, but double check all the steering and suspension nuts and bolts again.
Click to expand...

jeeeep said:
did you leave all the suspension bolts loose and give the Jeep a jounce with wheels on the ground before torqueing all the bolts?

How much lift and does it have a drag link flip installed?
Click to expand...

Yes, with the RJ60 the draglink Mount on the knuckle is raised so you mount the draglink on the bottom like stock, we shortened the metaljoke tracbar to stock length to put it in the raised trackbar bracket holes.

wayoflife said:
That's a good point but only really necessary when working with clevite bushings as they would get loaded up. Assuming the Jeep has Johnny Joints or the like, it wouldn't be necessary. In any case, that would only contribute to a rougher ride - not death wobble.

I'd be interested in knowing as well but lift height and a lack of a drag link flip won't cause death wobble.
Click to expand...

They are also metaljoke bushings, but we did leave them loose until we had the weight back on tires
 
wayoflife

wayoflife

Administrator
Staff member
Not that it would cause death wobble but did you make sure that the track bar is parallel to the drag link? Being that you had multiple mounting holes to choose from, this would be important to prevent bump steer. Also, being that you have one, I would definitely try the factory track bar to see if that makes a difference. If nothing else, it'll help eliminate possibilities.
 
Benito

Benito

Caught the Bug
wayoflife said:
Not that it would cause death wobble but did you make sure that the track bar is parallel to the drag link? Being that you had multiple mounting holes to choose from, this would be important to prevent bump steer. Also, being that you have one, I would definitely try the factory track bar to see if that makes a difference. If nothing else, it'll help eliminate possibilities.
Click to expand...

They look parallel, would it be possible that his previous setup, track bar in stock location with drag link flip (rancho high steer knuckles) hid the death wobble somehow?

JFEI, he has a Metalcloak 3.5” lift with all 8 adjustable control arms, regular shocks.


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wayoflife

wayoflife

Administrator
Staff member
Benito said:
They look parallel, would it be possible that his previous setup, track bar in stock location with drag link flip (rancho high steer knuckles) hid the death wobble somehow?

JFEI, he has a Metalcloak 3.5” lift with all 8 adjustable control arms, regular shocks.
Click to expand...

Nah, shouldn't make a difference and even if the links were off, he'd just be getting bump steer.

Can't say for sure with Metalcloak but I had a lot of problems with JKS track bars in the past. I literally went through 3 different ones and I mean, completely re-designed and all new ones before finally giving up and going back to stock. The problem with them was that they flexed and that was causing my death wobble. Granted, I had other problems going on as well but once they got things going, the track bar allowed things to escalate to death wobble. It's part of why I'm not too fond of aluminum or flexible tie-rods too. Sure, it sounds great in theory but in my opinion, this is all stuff that you want rigid. My point to saying all this is that I know that Metalcloak has had issues with their steering components being on the flexible side. This is why I suggest installing the factory track bar you have - just to see if it fixes things or so that you can at least rule it out.
 
RockinAZJK

RockinAZJK

Caught the Bug
X2 on swapping out the track bar. I chased death wobble for a long time and one (I had multiple things going on) of the causes was the heim joint on the frame end was loose but you couldn’t see it by rocking the steering. I changed that joint as a Hail Mary and it did the trick.


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