Trying to kill my DW once and for all. Advice on ball joints?

[Josh27]

So I had my track bar holes fixed and that suppressed death wobble by a large amount but it still happens, just not quite as sensitive. Looks like by ball joints are good, but i did notice my sway bar bushings are shot and my end links do not fit snugly in the sway bar. My question is, should there be much play in the end link bolt and the hole in the sway bar? It seems like the bolt on my end link should be bigger to fit in the hole on the sway bar better.

 

[OverlanderJK]

Sway bar won't help or hurt death wobble.

 

[Josh27]

Sway bar won't help or hurt death wobble.

Thats what I was thinking but I just noticed these things and thought I would address it. The only other thing I can think that would be causing my death wobble would be the tie rod ends. But when I have someone turn the wheel there is very little maybe even no play in the ends. Same with the ball joints, jack it up and i cannot move the wheel at all and don't see any play at all.

How about bad control arm bushings? would that be a cause of DW?

 

[piginajeep]

How do you know the balljoints are good?

 

[Josh27]

How do you know the balljoints are good?

Like I already stated, when I jack it up and try to move the wheel I do not see any play and do not hear any abnormal sounds therefore I am assuming they are good. I could be wrong but thats what I thought you do to check to see if they are good. I will have my mechanic look at it when it goes in for other things unrelated to death wobble.

 

[OverlanderJK]

Like I already stated, when I jack it up and try to move the wheel I do not see any play and do not hear any abnormal sounds therefore I am assuming they are good. I could be wrong but thats what I thought you do to check to see if they are good. I will have my mechanic look at it when it goes in for other things unrelated to death wobble.

You need to use a micrometer. I didn't see anything with my ball joints either but they were bad. Are they stock? How many miles?

 

[Josh27]

You need to use a micrometer. I didn't see anything with my ball joints either but they were bad. Are they stock? How many miles?

Yeah pretty sure they are stock with 95,000 miles. So most likely they are bad? It makes sense that they would be the cause of it but I guess I didn't realize that even a tiny amount of movement would set it off.

 

[piginajeep]

Yeah pretty sure they are stock with 95,000 miles. So most likely they are bad? It makes sense that they would be the cause of it but I guess I didn't realize that even a tiny amount of movement would set it off.

95,000?? I'm on my third set at 45,000

 

[StrizzyChris]

95,000?? I'm on my third set at 45,000

Gonna stick with stock or go prosteer on the next change?

 

[piginajeep]

Gonna stick with stock or go prosteer on the next change?

I'll have them in the prorock44. (Hopefully next upgrade) I didn't want to have to pull them out to reinstall them.

 

[Josh27]

95,000?? I'm on my third set at 45,000

They may have been replaced before but I don't know. At least I know I haven't replaced them in the 40,000 miles I've owned it and I am just now having problems

 

[finger3]

Strange, my JK has a bad hyme joint on the track bar, bad drag link, bad steering shock, and bad ball joints with no DW. I lifted an 07 Ram with a top gun Customz 8" short arm kit that had no problems for about a month when the right front shock went bad causing DW. I left the shock with its play on and replaced the short arms with a Rock Crawler long arm kit that completely eliminated the DW. I don't think a 2.5" lift would cause any problems but you may check your shocks to see if that is causing any problems.

 

[StrizzyChris]

Strange, my JK has a bad hyme joint on the track bar, bad drag link, bad steering shock, and bad ball joints with no DW. I lifted an 07 Ram with a top gun Customz 8" short arm kit that had no problems for about a month when the right front shock went bad causing DW. I left the shock with its play on and replaced the short arms with a Rock Crawler long arm kit that completely eliminated the DW. I don't think a 2.5" lift would cause any problems but you may check your shocks to see if that is causing any problems.

Sorry finger but, either I ain't reading that right....or it just don't make any sense on a couple levels...

#1- did you just say that you installed a lift with new shocks that resulted in DW....you then left those same shocks on but switched out the arms and other components but left the shocks on which fixed the problem? You then told op to check his cause it may be what's causing the problem, even though it wasn't you're shocks in the story you just told as an example? :thinking:

#2- DW is not caused by bad shocks. Shocks only dampen/slow the movement of the body and axles from rapidly coming together and moving apart.

 

[finger3]

Sorry finger but, either I ain't reading that right....or it just don't make any sense on a couple levels...

#1- did you just say that you installed a lift with new shocks that resulted in DW....you then left those same shocks on but switched out the arms and other components but left the shocks on which fixed the problem? You then told op to check his cause it may be what's causing the problem, even though it wasn't you're shocks in the story you just told as an example? :thinking:

#2- DW is not caused by bad shocks. Shocks only dampen/slow the movement of the body and axles from rapidly coming together and moving apart.

Ya you could look at that a little straingly but DW sometimes can just be the front end bouncing out of control. One shock on that truck ended up with play in it combined with the steep angle of the short control arms causing DW. In this case I ended up eliminating the problem with long arms, however the problem did start with and was caused by reacurring bubbles in the shock. I just used an alternate method of curing the problem knowing that the long arm would have the side effect of giving the truck an over all better ride. Tire balance, shocks, track bar, ball joints, tirod ends, and control arms can all cause this problem and a steering stabilizer can mask it to a point. Not trying to confuse anybody just make a sugjestion that may or may not help. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

[wayoflife]

Strange, my JK has a bad hyme joint on the track bar, bad drag link, bad steering shock, and bad ball joints with no DW.

What was bad about your heim joint? A bad drag link is not likely to cause death wobble. A bad steering shock will NOT cause death wobble. How do you know your ball joints were bad? I have had more death wobble that I would care to have had on multiple Jeeps and have NEVER seen where a track bar with loose or bad joint or bad ball joints wouldn't cause death wobble. But hey, that's just me.

I lifted an 07 Ram with a top gun Customz 8" short arm kit that had no problems for about a month when the right front shock went bad causing DW. I left the shock with its play on and replaced the short arms with a Rock Crawler long arm kit that completely eliminated the DW.

"Ram" as in a pick-up truck? While I would agree that ONE bad front shock can help "instigate" death wobble as it has happened to me as well, you more than likely had loose or worn out suspension components that actually allowed it to happen. The installation of your new components most likely fixed your problem but only because what you had was off or bad.

I don't think a 2.5" lift would cause any problems but you may check your shocks to see if that is causing any problems.

Death wobble can and does occur on stock Jeeps all the time and in all the cases I have seen, shocks were not the cause of any of them.

http://wayalife.com/showthread.php?17508-Dealer-can-t-resolve-issues

 

[finger3]

What was bad about your heim joint? A bad drag link is not likely to cause death wobble. A bad steering shock will NOT cause death wobble. How do you know your ball joints were bad? I have had more death wobble that I would care to have had on multiple Jeeps and have NEVER seen where a track bar with loose or bad joint or bad ball joints wouldn't cause death wobble. But hey, that's just me.

While I was still running short arms on the JK I had replaced the front drive shaft and upper control armsto get the proper drive shaft alignment. This caused the track bar to act as the driver side bump stop as it would rest across the dif cover bolts. You can see the heim joint move move side to side when the wheel is turned left and right and the greas seems to have leaked out giving it a burnt look. The ball joints will drop 1/32-1/16" when the tires leave the ground. I was told this is bad. I've herd a couple guys talk about the track bar causing DW but I've only seen it cause bad steering. I know the steering shock is only there to absorb those hard hits when going through rough tarain and it sometimes masks problems that cause DW or shimmy as it wes called when I was a kid.

"Ram" as in a pick-up truck? While I would agree that ONE bad front shock can help "instigate" death wobble as it has happened to me as well, you more than likely had loose or worn out suspension components that actually allowed it to happen. The installation of your new components most likely fixed your problem but only because what you had was off or bad.

Ya it was a Cummins Megacab pickup. The problem was the extreme angle of the short arms with 8" of lift compounded by a shock going bad. Replacing the shock would have fixed the problem, but I wanted the long arm and it was a better solution in this case.

Death wobble can and does occur on stock Jeeps all the time and in all the cases I have seen, shocks were not the cause of any of them.

It was just a thought and I figured any possiblaty is worth mentioning.

Ten characters:thinking: whoops

 

[wayoflife]

While I was still running short arms on the JK I had replaced the front drive shaft and upper control armsto get the proper drive shaft alignment.

You'll forgive me but, you install front upper control arms to set your "caster", NOT for "proper drive shaft alignment". You use REAR upper control arms to set your drive shaft pinion angle but NOT up front.

This caused the track bar to act as the driver side bump stop as it would rest across the dif cover bolts. You can see the heim joint move move side to side when the wheel is turned left and right and the greas seems to have leaked out giving it a burnt look. The ball joints will drop 1/32-1/16" when the tires leave the ground. I was told this is bad. I've herd a couple guys talk about the track bar causing DW but I've only seen it cause bad steering. I know the steering shock is only there to absorb those hard hits when going through rough tarain and it sometimes masks problems that cause DW or shimmy as it wes called when I was a kid.

You're steering stabilizer or "steering shock" as you like to call it is there to help absorb kick back and yes, it will mask death wobble. And, to be clear, just because you have a bad track bar and ball joints doesn't mean that your Jeep will have death wobble the instant you drive it. It takes a certain set of conditions to get your front axle oscillating and that's what will cause it to occur. Of course, I don't need to have a couple of guys tell me what I know as I have experienced it on more than one occasion and have seen it happen first hand to many people and have been able to fix it every time. But hey, what do I know.

Ya it was a Cummins Megacab pickup. The problem was the extreme angle of the short arms with 8" of lift compounded by a shock going bad. Replacing the shock would have fixed the problem, but I wanted the long arm and it was a better solution in this case.

Not from what I'm hearing. A new shock may have helped to prevent it from occurring but ultimately, something was more than likely still off to allow it to occur. But, that's just the way I see it.

 

[finger3]

You'll forgive me but, you install front upper control arms to set your "caster", NOT for "proper drive shaft alignment". You use REAR upper control arms to set your drive shaft pinion angle but NOT up front.



You're steering stabilizer or "steering shock" as you like to call it is there to help absorb kick back and yes, it will mask death wobble. And, to be clear, just because you have a bad track bar and ball joints doesn't mean that your Jeep will have death wobble the instant you drive it. It takes a certain set of conditions to get your front axle oscillating and that's what will cause it to occur. Of course, I don't need to have a couple of guys tell me what I know as I have experienced it on more than one occasion and have seen it happen first hand to many people and have been able to fix it every time. But hey, what do I know.



Not from what I'm hearing. A new shock may have helped to prevent it from occurring but ultimately, something was more than likely still off to allow it to occur. But, that's just the way I see it.

Thanks Eddy. I value your advice. Right now I'm hanging on to the money I was about to spend on my JK to buy a friend's 73 Jeep Wagon since I have no alternate transportation. The 07 Ram was traded in on the JK and my 73 Javelin needs quite a bit of work and may only ever be able to be a trailer queen in the future.

 

[finger3]

Thats what I was thinking but I just noticed these things and thought I would address it. The only other thing I can think that would be causing my death wobble would be the tie rod ends. But when I have someone turn the wheel there is very little maybe even no play in the ends. Same with the ball joints, jack it up and i cannot move the wheel at all and don't see any play at all.

How about bad control arm bushings? would that be a cause of DW?

I have seen control arm bushings cause DW on an a couple IFS setups. Not sure on a JK though. Noticed this had not been answered, perhaps someone with more experience could chime in and answer this.

 

[jkmohican]

I have seen control arm bushings cause DW on an a couple IFS setups. Not sure on a JK though. Noticed this had not been answered, perhaps someone with more experience could chime in and answer this.

I will tell you from experince that bad control arm bushings cannot cause death wobble. Similar to a bad drag link, it can instigate but its impossible for bad control arms to cause it. The movment is completly different from what death wobble starts from.

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