death wobble - '04 TJ

It could be one of a couple of things:

Most likely, the caliper sliders got stuck and eventually freed up. If that is the case, cleaning and lubing the caliper sliders will remedy this.

...or, the caliper itself was stuck, and you will see more of it to come, a rebuild of it is possible, but replacing the caliper is cheaper.

...or, the brake hose is bad, limiting the return flow of fluid from the caliper, back to the master cylinder.

Usually, it occurs in that order. Start with the cheap fixes first, and do both sides.

Spdloader

I would be concerned that the reason that it stopped might be that the brake pad had worn away or the brake disc was ruined...

I'd start with looking at the caliper slider pins. They should be clean and shiney, use the special high temp/high tac lube on them. And they will stick and unstick for the first few times, sooner or later they will stick long enough to fry everything.

The high caliper/rotor temp did not do anyth> I drove a CJ as my daily driver until this past December when I traded for a

In article , Crushed Red Pepper wrote: #I drove a CJ as my daily driver until this past December when I traded for a #2004 TJ with the 4.0L and small 225 x 70 R15 tires (I will fix that later). #It had only 13k miles when i got it, but it is past the 36 month warranty #period. It has driven beautifully until last night. At 47-48 mph, it #started a shimmy up front. If I maintained throttle pressue, the shimmy #progressed to a full bore death wobble...you could see the front end shake #violently and the steering wheel was hard to hold. When I slowed down below #40mph, it would go away. I stopped and walked around, but could not see #anything wrong. I dropped my son off at his baseball practiced and went #back out....same thing. I stopped to turn around after a couple of miles, #on a hill, and as i sat there with the clutch in, i noticed that the jeep #was not rolling back even with out the brake on....like the e-brake was #partially engaged (it wasn't, I checked). When i got back to the ballpark, #I did another turn around the jeep and noticed a significant amount of heat #coming off of the front passenger wheel. You could smell it and see a small #amount of smoke coming off of the brake pad.....so i am assuming that the #caliper stuck for some reason. Practice lasted another hour, and when I #drove home.....it drove perfectly. Again this morning it drove great on the #way to work. Any ideas? What would cause the caliper to stick just that #one time? #

Did you upgrade your 7/70 Powertrain warranty to Maximum Care within

If so, your covered. Go take it in and pay your deductable.

I snuck in with 47850 on my wife's (new to us) '04 WJ. Considering the issues we had with the bleeding-edge year '99 WJ, I'm glad we got it. I'll do the same with the '04 Rubi when it hits the 3/36 mark as well.

/herb

Great idea.......I think I will do that. Thanks Herb.