Shift from 3rd to 4th gear and it starts to wobble, even if i slow down the wobble gets worse to the point it shakes the wheel from my hands. Needing some advice on what to look for or do to fix this. Its practically undrivable.
Awful Death Wobble at 45mph
- Thread starter pkelly12
- Start date
C.J. Roberts
TJ Addict
95% of death wobble is caused by tires not being balanced. Get your tires balanced and report back to us. If that doesn't do it, we'll walk you through the next steps.
Sounds like a tire shimmy due to unbalance at a certain speed is triggering death wobble. Death wobble should not be able to happen even with a tire shimmy, thus something is loose enough to allow it to happen. Most of the time, it is the trackbar. You may be able to find the loose culprit by performing a steering test. Have someone crank the wheel back and forth while you watch and feel the suspension linkage to find which member is loose.
LONGJP2
TJ Expert
ChasUGC
TJ Enthusiast
Yeah, I had that problem recently and my mechanic said it was loose or worn out parts in my steering box. Horrible death wobble at 45 MPH. My nice mechanic fixed it and still hasn't charged me for it.
Rotating the tires is the first thing to do. Tire shimmy and death wobble are not the same thing. Death wobble usually occurs after hitting a bump or pot hole. If you have true death wobble the first thing you do is change your underwear. I get death wobble on my F250. Had to have the front end rebuilt under warranty at 7k. I have had it twice afterward, once just last week, and rotating the tires worked both times for me. Scares the shit out of me and my butt puckers for a while every time I hit a bump, train track or go on a very rough road.
ivarr
Member
had it bad, everyone here saying " oh, tires not balanced correctly ".
re-balance re-balance re-balance re-balance 4 times with random rotation of brand new tires. wrong, zero affect or problem fix.
maybe the right thing for some people, but not me.
track bar worn the hell out , install new one, problem instantly gone and remains gone a year and a half later ...
re-balance re-balance re-balance re-balance 4 times with random rotation of brand new tires. wrong, zero affect or problem fix.
maybe the right thing for some people, but not me.
track bar worn the hell out , install new one, problem instantly gone and remains gone a year and a half later ...
C.J. Roberts
TJ Addict
I'm not saying that tire balancing is THE answer, but it is for most death wobble. I'm saying to have the tires balanced BEFORE throwing parts at it. If that's not it, at least you have eliminated it, and relatively cheaply, too. If it is, you don't have to do a dry steer test or look for anything else.
Tires are not always the cause but the easiest to rule out other jacking up and looking for excessive play.
LONGJP2
TJ Expert
Tire balance is a good first step if everything else looks good.
Obviously, you should have found the trackbar first if it was 'worn the hell out'.
ChasUGC
TJ Enthusiast
He's not even the OP. If every problem had the exact same solution then there would no need for words like differences, variations, etc. If I have a coolant leak does it mean that it is always from the water pump? Nope.
Before you balance you can swap rears to the front- it will reveal one of 3 things-
-no dw- means your back tires are balanced good and the front need balanced
- dw - means either back tires need balancing- or - both front and rear are good and you need to keep looking (dry test)
I dry test first, then test it running, then switch tires - simply because its easiest , not a rule
1st, don't let go of the wheel. Hold on tight and step on the breaks if you have to.
2nd, if prone to DW don't drive 45. 35 or 55 should be fine. In-between is no-mans-land and you need to hurry on through. You can accelerate through DW if it's just starting.
j/k on #2. kinda.
2nd, if prone to DW don't drive 45. 35 or 55 should be fine. In-between is no-mans-land and you need to hurry on through. You can accelerate through DW if it's just starting.
j/k on #2. kinda.
This is the best advice.
Flip tires back to front., it shouldn’t be “exactly” the same. If it is, then don’t focus in tires, start hard core dry steering.
You seem angry, calling out tires as a suggestion at everyone.
You balanced them how many times without doing a dry steerign and seeing a worn the hell out track bar?
Little self own here, ha.
The point is for every issue you need a plan of attack. One at a time with the simplest one first. For a water leak I would first look at where the water is coming from. If it’s coming from the water pump weep hole then It’s safe say it’s a failed water pump. My P0303 code was a bad spark plug. I eliminated several other potential causes first. For others it could be caused by something else in the system.
Death Wobble is pretty bad. AWFUL Death Wobble is distributed by The Department Of Redundancy Department, and even then, only in extreme cases of unnecessarily unneedful extremes.
