At a loss with death wobble

Terry from Texas said:
When I first bought my LJ about 2.5 years ago I had a bad vibration. It had chrome 16s on it and I wanted to move to 15s and go black so I bought some cheap steelies and some 31s and gave the tires and wheels to someone else. They in turn installed them on their TJ and they developed the same balance issue.
Now I work at a Toyota dealership so I had the ability to balance the original tire wheel set up but could not get a satisfactory ride with the original setup and I checked the tire wheel and forced matched but could not fix.
I fixed mine with new tires and wheels....
Just food for thought
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I literally just saw my 2014 wrangler rims “flake off” the weights of one rim in my driveway when it fell over as I took it off my TJ (doing front suspension now)

So yeah wheel balancing is obviously a point of contention to be concerned with. Never take anything for granted
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The Jeep came with these Linglong Crosswind 31s. The tire place said 2 of the tires were off by 6 oz. So those have a dozen weights, to get them to balance out. My future son-law is a mechanic but hasn’t been able to look at it until now. He thinks it’s the tires after looking at the rest of the components and running dry test with me. Nothing moved that wasn’t supposed to move. At this point I may just have to go with better tires.

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I had some linglongs on my tacoma that developed flat spots after sitting for 2 years and shook badly. Solution was new tires
 
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I’m chasing down bump steer. I’ve done dry steer test. The only part that has play is my steering box. More than likely that’s my culprit I had it rebuilt about two years ago by a local shop.
First I thought it might have been my tires and still possibly could be but I get bump steer when hitting a bump or long turns on the freeway and freeway intersections.
I can kinda control bumpsteer with the rpm’s(I have a manual). I already know where I’m about to get the wobbles so I have the jeep at certain RPM’s.
I was working at a shop that let me use the tire balancing machine.(Not road force) for the life of me I couldn’t balance the tires on Dynmanic. I was able to balance them on Static balancing but they took a lot of weight. I even broke the bead and spun the tire 180 degrees and still had a lot of weight. I have bfg ko2 about 50% life left. I have read that k02 are a pain in the ass to balance. I’ve been meaning to try balance beads but I don’t know a lot about them.
 
06TJ35's said:
I’m chasing down bump steer. I’ve done dry steer test. The only part that has play is my steering box. More than likely that’s my culprit I had it rebuilt about two years ago by a local shop.
First I thought it might have been my tires and still possibly could be but I get bump steer when hitting a bump or long turns on the freeway and freeway intersections.
I can kinda control bumpsteer with the rpm’s(I have a manual). I already know where I’m about to get the wobbles so I have the jeep at certain RPM’s.
I was working at a shop that let me use the tire balancing machine.(Not road force) for the life of me I couldn’t balance the tires on Dynmanic. I was able to balance them on Static balancing but they took a lot of weight. I even broke the bead and spun the tire 180 degrees and still had a lot of weight. I have bfg ko2 about 50% life left. I have read that k02 are a pain in the ass to balance. I’ve been meaning to try balance beads but I don’t know a lot about them.
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You're saying bump steer but you're describing death wobble. Bump steer is a completely different problem.
 
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Lucky! said:
The Jeep came with these Linglong Crosswind 31s.

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Their food is much better than their tires. 🤫
www.yelp.com

Ling Long - Houston, TX

Specialties: We serve handmade pan fried dumplings and noodle soups. Our dumplings are made from scratch daily in three kinds of fillings: chicken, pork, and spinach. For noodle soups, we have beef, chicken, pork ribs, and veggie eggs. Established in 2019. Ling Long Dumpling and Noodle House...
www.yelp.com www.yelp.com
 
Irun said:
What's going on with that bottom right control arm?

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I see what you're talking about, but I was just in my garage at the same angle to the front of my TJ from a short distance and thought, what the heck!? Got closer and it's just the way the inside bracket has a lip at that angle makes it look bent. Kind of an optical illusion.
 
I am sure this is totally unrelated but it looks like someone has welded in the upper ball joint on the driver’s side. Has anyone ever seen that done before?
 
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Lucky! said:
Thanks. I have done the dry test but the tires haven’t been balanced since I bought it, Have appointment for early next week to have them done along with an alignment.
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I found this was the problem with my TJ when I bought it. Balanced and rotated the tires and have had no issues since.
 
C.J. Roberts said:
The first thing to check is tire balance. Probably 95% of death wobble is tires not being properly balanced. Get them balanced by somebody who's willing to take the time to do it right.
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I subscribe to the DWWTH (death wobble waiting to happen) theory, which holds that death wobble may be triggered by unbalanced tires, but the root cause is not tires, rather something loose that should be tight that is allowing death wobble to happen -namely, the suspension and steering linkages.
 
TurboTJ said:
I am sure this is totally unrelated but it looks like someone has welded in the upper ball joint on the driver’s side. Has anyone ever seen that done before?
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That gap between the inner C and steering knuckle looks off. Ball joint boot is toast. Maybe it’s dried up and worn out? Hard to tell without a closer picture.
 
Tob said:
I subscribe to the DWWTH (death wobble waiting to happen) theory, which holds that death wobble may be triggered by unbalanced tires, but the root cause is not tires, rather something loose that should be tight that is allowing death wobble to happen -namely, the suspension and steering linkages.
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You are mistaken Sir. DW is USUALLY caused by unbalanced tires. There MAY be other problems, but even if you had a completely rebuilt suspension with new everything, and your tires were not balanced properly, you'll get DW.
 
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C.J. Roberts said:
You are mistaken Sir. DW is USUALLY caused by unbalanced tires. There MAY be other problems, but even if you had a completely rebuilt suspension with new everything, and your tires were not balanced properly, you'll get DW.
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Correct. 9/10 times DW is tire related. The TRIGGER is that bump/pothole you just drove over. The tire oscillations are enhanced and magnified by worn out/loose parts.
 
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C.J. Roberts said:
You are mistaken Sir. DW is USUALLY caused by unbalanced tires. There MAY be other problems, but even if you had a completely rebuilt suspension with new everything, and your tires were not balanced properly, you'll get DW.
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Tire shimmy is not the same thing as death wobble. Those are two distinct things that may occur exclusively of each other.
 
Tob said:
Tire shimmy is not the same thing as death wobble. Those are two distinct things that may occur exclusively of each other.
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Though I've never experienced DW in my TJ, I did have it once in my '79 CJ7. I'm talking about Scared Enough to Almost Crap Myself DW. I got the tires balanced and it never did it again.
 
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