2004TJ front end wobble

All we do is jeep wranglers and have for about 8 years if your stablizer has less than 10,000 miles on it then you need to look at your tires for cupping..... we have found that is the tires are not rotated every 3000 miles they will begin to cup and become junk I can be reached at larry snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com I will forward a number you can reach me at we can talk better about the issue if you like.

Larry.

I second that. I had a worn ball joint where the trackbar mounts to the frame. A new adjustable trackbar fixed the problem. Regards,

Guri Sandhu

Jerry Bransford wrote:

I can picture the "extreme" of cupping....but how can you tell if it's slight? The chalk test?

you will be able to feel it with you hand the edge of the tread will feel sharper (or feathered like)

Larry

Monday 27 June update -

I changed out the steering damper after replacing the bolt for the trackbar that I broke Friday. That basically eliminated the wobble as an oscillation that traveled up into the steering. However - there was still an unusual vibration present, something still not right. I jacked up the front end - tie rod ends are fine, no wiggle in the ball joints, everything seems tight. I checked the tires for out-of-round or cupping or anything else. Nothing.

Bouncing on the shocks showed a perceptible difference at the driver's side front shock, at least a couple of bounces more than should have been there. I replaced all four, and the death wobble is gone.

The tires may still be an issue and may have been the root cause. I'm taking the vehicle back to the machanic to rebalance the front tires and look for any out of round or cupping at speed on the balance machine. There is a slight vibration which may be an issue.

The Jeep feels so much more stable now, though, that I would consider it solved. I've actually forgotten to pay attention to the feel of the steering and to every bump and vibration in case it goes wrong, and just enjoyed the driving again.

Thanks for the help and pointers.

--doug

one last thing have you ever had it off road or did you buy it used ... I did run into a situation similar to this we found that the front drive line had been bent on a stump when it had been off road.

Larry

Two drastically different shocks on one axle will cause a LOT of strange things - but you still need to nail down the undelying cause. Right now, you have it masked but it will return.

If you have steel rims, did you check the runout? it doesn't take much of a bump aga> Monday 27 June update -

Bought it new. Never off road (other than dirt roads in Vermont).

I went from stock shocks to four new shocks, so they always matched. It has the aluminum 15' rims. There's only two things left I would consider possible. Tires and alignment - and I'm still debating when to replace the stock Goodyear tyres. If I do them right away, the alignment is a waste. I have to admit, I'm looking for an excuse to get new.

I'm not convinced entirely that this is a hidden problem at this point. With just the steering damper, absolutely - but after replacing the shocks it is stable and the wobble isn't present at all. No bump triggers anything remotely like that.

--doug

then it has got to be your tires........

Tires. The Goodyear Wrangler GSA lasted 30,456 miles. Less if you count the last three weeks of troubleshooting... The tires were scuffed and out of round. Apparently that's not bad for these tires...

Also one of the five upgrade aluminum wheels is out of round - what do you want to bet that was the spare and they figured I'd never notice... Anyway it was one of the running wheels and now is the spare unless I can get the dealer to replace it.

I put Michelin LTX M/Ses on it - smooth and clean ride. I drive snow and highway right now, and I'm hoping (with regular 3000 mile rotation...) to get at least 60000 from these.

I also had to align the car. It's now back to normal. Just wanted to finish this.

people keep mentioning that the tires were the root cause, and I use people loosely mind you. I believe from reading your posts that the shocks are to blame for the problems, and not the tires. If your shocks were bad, especially in the front, that would cause all kinds of tire issues, and ruin your tires. then your tires may be causing DW. I'd think about replacing all of your bushings up front, and maybe even all of the steering components. I've priced them for a YJ in Quadratec, and I can replace my whole front steering myself for about $150 in parts.......plus new bushings.....worth a shot.....

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

We have been dealing with Jeeps for about 15 yrs anytime you have D.W. 95% of the time it is TIRES!!! (with the TJ)

Larry

extremetjs did pass the time by typing:

DW from my experience starts with tire imbalance or old shocks. As the out of balance tire hops it slowly cups itself but more damage occurs to the opposite tire since it is scrubbed. Just like a single shock failing causes the opposite tire to cup. Eventually the damper and shocks simply can't control the problem and things go south.

I say tire imbalance because of all of the times it's happened to me in the past, rotating tires front to back stopped the problem. Then taking the jeep in for a ballance found one of the wheels had thrown a weight. (one time it wasn't actually a weight that got thrown, it was the remains of CV joint grease and dirt that formed a solid lump inside the rim.

Another possible cause is non-matched front tires. I had a set of tires where one was worn about 1/16" more than the others (dunno how) If it ever got on the front DW would happen at about 80mph every time. Got new tires all around and the problem went away.

Death Wobble happens. ;)

I would agree.... except that when the tires are not rotated every 3000 miles which most people do not know they have to do in a jeep wrangler this is due to the short wheel base, the tight turning radius,and being light weight vehicle that it is. when you look at the jeeping community as a whole, newbies and all. The majority of NEW jeep owners do not figure out that they must rotate EVERY 3000 miles their tires become junk. Essially since we are talking about a relitvely NEW JEEP it was a no brainer that he did not do the rotation that ws required in order to get a long life out of his tires.

Larry

It makes sense that without following the tire rotation schedule, the tire would start this, wear on the shocks and ultimately the steering damper until becoming obvious. And yes, the FSM does say do a tire rotation at every oil change. But not in the schedules, instead in the description, under "At each oil change" which is why I missed it. Not sure I would have believed it without experiencing the result in any case.

However, from now on I certainly will be.

One last question - beyond the tire rotation are there any other gotchas I should watch out for to keep this thing running?

Maybe this is a new post...

--doug