Installed wheel spacers => Death wobble??

[Jason4x4]

So yesterday I installed a set of four 1.5" wheel spacers from Rough Country on my '06 TJ to correct my 32" tires rubbing on the swaybar when the steering wheel is at full lock. I installed everything per the directions, removed the star washers, torqued down all the lugs and what not. Didn't have any problems. However, when I took the Jeep for a test drive afterwards, I seem to now have problems with death wobble. I had no issues at all before installing the wheel spacers. Does this make any sense?? I've just passed 41,000 miles, have had 32" tires since about 20,000 miles, still on the original steering stabilizer, 2" RE budget lift since about 10,000 miles. Could the steering stabilizer be giving up the ghost? What else should I look at?? I'm just kind of confused as to why installing spacers would cause a wobble.


Here's a before/after comparison if anyone is interested.

 

[TerryMason]

death wobble is normally triggered by a bump in the road, or a wheel out of balance. After that it grows and becomes worse until you have to pull over.

My first guess would be that your new wheel spacers when added to your older tires have caused them to be out of balance.

1. Try putting the front tires on the back
2. go through your jeep looking for worn bushings and bent steering equipment (trackbar, tie rod, control arms).
3. Grab a torque wrench and tighten everything down to the correct tightness.

don't worry about your stabilizer - it's job is mainly to mask what vibrations you do get. Replacing it is really just treating the symptoms.

Here's the article I wrote about death wobble
http://www.jeepz.com/forum/suspension/29510-wrangler-death-wobble-what-causes-how-fix.html

 

[Jason4x4]

Thanks for the advice. After doing some more research, it seems what I'm experiencing is not really "death wobble". It is definitely a wobble, a slight left-right rocking of the steering wheel that seems to occur around 40-45mph (but not always). It seems it is not as severe as "death wobble". I may try rotating the tires front to rear and see if that helps. If not, I'll have the balance checked. I looked for any obvious damage or anything loose on the tie rod/track bar earlier and double checked that everything was torqued down correctly, and everything seemed to be ok.

If you have any other suggestions, let me know.

 

[Jason4x4]

I realized yesterday my tires were over 3 years old, so I went ahead and had them all balanced this morning. The shop said they were all off, 1 was worse than the others and this has helped the issue but there is still a vibration between 40-45mph, although not as bad as before. The shop thinks it's the steering stabilizer as he said there is not much resistance to moving the wheels/axle back and forth when the jeep is up in the air. So I guess I'll go ahead and order a new one since they're not too expensive and see if that helps. Is there any one particular brand that's better than the others??

 

[Liutas]

I doubt seriously that the stabilizer is the root of the problem. A good stabilizer can help cover up the symptoms so that you don't notice them but that's it. The stabilizer isn't making your jeeps front wobble. Your best bet is to find the actual problem, remedy that, and then replace your stabilizer with a quality unit. Otherwise, you'll end up hiding the real problem as it continues to get worse and end up with a more costly repair bill in the end.

My first suggestion would be to get tires balanced, which you've already done and you said that helped. Next I would get the front end aligned. By adding the spacers you almost definitely changed some of the geometry of the front end, getting it aligned will correct that.

After I installed my 4" lift on my '06 TJ Rubicon, I had a horrible death wobble any time I hit a good bump at anything over 40mph, I took it and got it aligned and it cleared right up.

 

[TerryMason]

I'm with Liutas. If you get a new stabilizer, your front will still be wobbling, but you may not feel it. The wobble will fatigue your suspension faster.
I think the alignment suggestion is a good one.

At to stabilizers, I think the are all pretty similar. Just get one that you think looks good (the Teraflex one is a good example)

 

[Jason4x4]

Alright, you guys win. I'll take her in for an alignment first thing in the morning. I'll let you know if that takes care of the problem.

Thanks again.

 

[Liutas]

Don't thank us until you know whether or not you wasted your $80 because of us. 8)

 

[Jason4x4]

Don't thank us until you know whether or not you wasted your $80 because of us. 8)

At least I got a 20% off coupon for alignments at Mr. Tire, so I might only be throwing away $64

 

[Jason4x4]

My Jeep is still at the shop, so I don't know the outcome yet, but I just wanted to say that I had to argue with the guy for 15 minutes this morning just to get them to check the alignment. I explained the problem and the guy swore up and down that there's no way it's an alignment issue and I would be wasting my money. Finally I got him to agree to checking it so I could be sure it wasn't an issue. I think it's been 3 years since it was aligned anyway so it's probably needed anyway even if it doesnt fix the shimmy. I'll post again when I get the results of the alignment.

 

[Liutas]

The guy sounds like an idiot, if you google "jeep death wobble" you get tons of hits saying one of the most probable causes is being out of alignment. I don't remember if you mentioned, is your jeep lifted? If so, the alignment settings, particularly the caster, need to be set different than if it's not lifted. When I took mine in for the alignment I made sure that the techs were aware of this and familiar with doing alignment jobs on lifted vehicles.

 

[Jason4x4]

To answer your question, I have a 2" RE Budget lift right now, putting together the pieces for a 4" short arm lift in the not too distant future.

Anyway, so I got the alignment done, still have the wobble. I have the spec sheet and can post the settings they used if it makes a difference. When I first picked up the Jeep, the wobble was about the same as before. When I talked to the guy, he indicated that the alignment was a bit off, but he thinks the cause of the wobble is the wear on the tires. He says they're about shot and he recommended that I replace them. I know I have one tire that seems to be worn more than the others for some reason, but it's on the rear right now.

Now, to contribute some more info, like I said when I first picked it up the wobble was about the same as before the alignment. Out of curiousity, I decided to try swapping the front tires (i.e. moving the front drivers side tire to the front passenger side and vice versa). I didn't have a jack stand with me so I put my spare tire (same 32" BFG MTR as the others) on the front passenger side and moved the tire that was on the passenger side to the drivers side. I decided to take it for a spin like that to see what difference it made. Just so you know, the tire that was on as the spare (which I moved to the front pass. side) had been cut and was flat for the better part of a year and I finally found someone that was able to plug it a few weeks ago, so it has considerably less wear than the other 4 tires. With the 'newer' tire on the front passenger side, the Jeep was almost undriveable over 40mph. It was MUCH WORSE. That was what I imagine actual death wobble is like.

So, I came back and put the 'newer' tire back as the spare and finished swapping the fronts, so in other words the front drivers side when the jeep was aligned was now on the passenger side and vice versa. This configuration seems to be slightly better than before the alignment. It still wobbles, but for whatever reason it's not as bad and doesnt seem to do it every time you reach 40-45mph. What in the world does that mean?

Does any of this help? What's the next thing I should be checking???

 

[Jason4x4]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention...I had the front end jacked up and both tires were off the ground (one was way up, the other just barely off the ground as the hi-lift was on one side of my grill guard) - is it normal to be able to move the wheels back and forth by hand?? I was able to wiggle the wheels back and forth maybe an inch (and when I say wiggle, I was trying to move the wheels as if I was steering the vehicle left and right)...I didn't see anything that looked "loose" per say, but I wasn't sure if that was normal or not. I'm kinda out of my element here, my expertise is pretty much confined to the engine compartment . Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Liutas]

Sounds like something is loose in your steering linkage and is most likely causing your problem. Uneven wear on your tires is increasing the problem. I'm guessing you're not in a position right now to run out and buy a round of tires? You need to have somebody have a look at your steering linkage while you move the wheel back and forth to see what is moving with you and what is not. If you move the tire and another component moves but the one its attached to doesn't, you've found your worn part. Most likely, it's a little bit of wear in most or all components adding up to a lot of slop in the whole system. Good luck.

 

[jps4jeep]

one problem I have seen time and time again with people putting on wheel spacers is that they do not change the wheel studs or cut them. if youe wheel studs are just a C-hair too long, they will contact the back of the rim and not allow it to seat properly against the spacer mounting face. causing pretty much what your describing. easiest way to tell is pull off your whels and look for scratches on the back of the WMS. also, lock tite the spacer lug nuts to the unit bearing. they will loosen up.

 

[Jason4x4]

one problem I have seen time and time again with people putting on wheel spacers is that they do not change the wheel studs or cut them. if youe wheel studs are just a C-hair too long, they will contact the back of the rim and not allow it to seat properly against the spacer mounting face. causing pretty much what your describing. easiest way to tell is pull off your whels and look for scratches on the back of the WMS. also, lock tite the spacer lug nuts to the unit bearing. they will loosen up.

That's a good point. I'll double check that this evening.

 

[Jason4x4]

I don't see anything that looks loose in the steering. I havent had a chance to pull a wheel and look at the wheel studs but I seem to recall they looked completely recessed into the spacers. I'll take a look later and report back.

 

[Jason4x4]

It looks like the wheels are sitting flat on the spacers. I dont see any way the studs could be interfering.

I also can't find anything that seems to be loose. This is really driving me crazy. I have a new steering stabilizer coming Thursday. I don't know what else to do. Does anyone have any more suggestions?

Could it really just be tire wear? Tirerack seems to have a good price on 33" BFG KM2s but they're out of stock until the end of the month. The only other thing I can think to check is rotating tires front to rear and see if that makes a difference. I might try that tomorrow evening.

If you guys can think of anything else, let me know.

 

[southtj]

I had the same problems on my 04. No one could find the problem, I checked everything you did, tightened everything, balanced, aligned and steering stabilizer. The stabilizer helped a little but the wobble was still there. My mud tires had about 30,000 on them and were pretty worn. New BFG A/Ts and the wobble was gone.

Now the A/Ts have about 30,000 on them and I'm getting a slight wobble again. These, however, have way too much tread life left to replace. DW is very frustrating.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[Jason4x4]

Ok, so on my way home from work today I was thinking about this issue. I was going over everything I've checked and the only thing I could think of that I hadn't checked was tire pressure. In my mind I couldn't imagine how tire pressures being off could cause a "wobble", but I decided to check when I got home just to be sure (I also assumed that surely when the tires were balanced and the alignment was verified that mr. tire would have checked the pressure).

Front driver's side was at 21lbs, front passenger side was at 31lbs. I set all four tires to the same pressure. I had a hockey game this evening and when I made the ~20 mile drive to the hockey game and back, I was surprised to find that the wobble was barely noticeable! I wouldn't say that it's completely gone but it's MUCH better. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the small vibration that's left could easily be attributed to the wear on my tires (my MTR's are starting to get some mileage on them). So, I'm going to cross my fingers and see if it gets any worse in the next few days.

I still can't imagine how the pressures being off could have anything to do with this. Am I wrong?

By the way, new steering stabilizer coming tomorrow.