Baystate Jeepers

Hey jeepers, it's John and I have death wobble.

Holy crap.... I have never experienced it before and I must say it's violent.

Happens at speeds between 20 and 40mph. All I have to do is hit a bump or depressed sewer cap and the front wheels, steering wheel and front of jeep goes off the chart.... Tires oscolate left and right with great vigor and I lose 10 years off my life.

Heres the recent upgrades to the jeep:

2016 Willy model to start
4 inch teraflex lift kit with 8 adjustable alpine short arms
Dynatrac 60 full float axles with tie rod, 5.13 gears, arb lockers
Adams 1350 front and rear driveshafts
Teraflex monster front track bar and rear monster track bar
38 inch milestar patagonia tires with 17x9 inch steel wheels (came mounted and balanced)

That's the jist of it. There are some other upgrades but I just wanted to give a picture as to what's new on the jeep.

This tuesday a heavy drag link by teraflex will be installed and right now I don't have a steering damper installed.
My old factory drag link bushings are shot.

Dynatrac 60 axles knuckles don't require a flipped drag link. And they have welded a raised track bar bracket on their 60 axle.

As for the alignment, the caster is at 7 which I was told wouldn't cause any kind of death wobble. And the other specs are in green.

I was told the drag link and track bar need to be parallel to each other and here's a couple photos of what it looks like.
To me it looks like my drag link and track bar are actually right in line of one another... Not sure if that's a good thing or does one have to be higher than the other?

Help please!!

My brother Mike did his best.. His shop doesn't work on lifted jeeps. We tried but now we are stumped. And I'm upset and looking to have some fun.

Things I've found when I had death wobble various times. I am not an expert. Be sure the track bar bolts are tight. Mine was loose once coming back from the NEA meeting in Maine. Not fun. Connect the sway bar end links, which it looks like you did in your picture. That helped before I found the loose track bar. Have a steering stabilizer. That helped me when I replaced a destroyed one.

Steering Stabilizer DOES NOT fix death wobble. Go over all your bolts. Make sure if you reused stock bolts they are the right size for the axle holes. I see you reused stock steering, how are the ends on that? If the tires where shipped balanced make sure didnt lose weights. What's tire pressure? To high or low can cause it.

Thanks for the help.

I'm hoping to the problem gets fixed this week... Im excited to learn just what we got wrong

Twice for me. Once loose track bar. The other was tires out of balance. I distroyed my stearing stabilizer at Rausch my first yr wheeling and drove all the way home with no problem.

Start small and go up from there. Check all your jamb nuts, make sure they are all tight. Then check the wheel balance, even though they came balanced, doesn't mean they were done well. Have the alignment checked, even if it's a little off, that can put it into a death wobble. Heck, just check to make sure the tire pressure is equal side to side.

I can only add that the bolts Jeep used and the after market stuff dont always work together. A 9/16th bolt in a 14mm hole is what im saying. What is the stock range for caster on a JK . I assume its a jk. Rule of thumb is 1 degree for every inch of lift from the stock setting. Most DW stems from something loose or worn out. If you never had it before , its something you did. So Id start there. Lay on the ground and have someone you trust turn the wheel back and forth. Look right at every bolt to see if the track bar moves at all sideways. #1 reason. Then scooch around and look at every control arm busing to see any type of movement. Ive seen after market parts with to soft a bushing.Is the track bar adjustable ? Make sure the diff is in the middle. It has to be visible , let us know what you find and what youve done. FjR68

Thanks Frank and everyone else for the input and help. I just dropped the jk off at Offroad Elements. I'm confident they'll be able to diagnose and fix my death wobble..... Sooooo frustrating.

The bolt size compared to the hole size seems absolutely reasonable.... We definitely could have messed that up.

I just did a round of checking and retorquing all around before Sundays class VI run and found a bunch of things. Now I've picked up a tube of Markal security check paint. After you confirm and torque, you put a dab of paint across the nut and bolt. If it moves at all you can spot it just by looking.

Oooo I like that Markal marker for sure. Jeeps still at the shop... Next week the hydo assist will be installed. Hope I can get her back so I can begin enjoying the jeep. I've been driving around a minivan and it's getting depressing. Haha.

Caster was at 7 to 7.2 which is what dynatrac 60 recommends. The guys adjusted it down to around 5. 5 to 6 and it helped reduce the death wobble. I called teraflex because that's the lift kit and alpine arms I bought from and they claimed unless I have worn or loose parts it's all caster angle related. Ugh.... Teraflex guys said he's seen anywhere from +4 to 7 caster for the 4 inch lifted jk with dynatrac 60 axles should work.

We'll see next week. I'm working this wkend so no fun for me.

You will never notice the death wobble once you get hydro installed. You should also upgrade to the J8 booster/master to take full advantage of those 1 ton brakes.

Randy I like your thinking but I'm a step ahead...lol....J8 master cyl with booster and separate clutch resi already installed.

Here's what I was told by a couple different companies my issues:

A guy from Teraflex stated he thinks my issue is with caster. He said 4 to 7 degrees. Jeep was at 7.2 and when offroad elements dialed it back to 5.5 to 6 they said the jeep drove a longer distance without death wobble but eventually after hitting a bump in the road resulted in death wobble. So we'll see if dialing it down to say 5 will help.

From Dynatrac, I got advice of changing the tires to see if that's the problem...the gentleman on the phone said he's had customers before that after changing the tires out (due to them being OVAL in shape) solved the issue.

So I brought up those points to offroad elements and we'll see what happens this Monday and Tuesday. UGH

They have some nice Jeeps at that Offroad Elements and Eric is the man! Customer service is very nice and patient with me.