Stock Shackles

[Dustbuster]

Ok, so I'm having some steering (wobbling) problems. Looked under the truck and it appears that the front leaf spring shackles are welded to the frame differently. Passenger side has the rounded, solid side facing the front bumper and the driver's side has the open side facing the front bumper. Is this correct or has it (likely the driver's side) been re-welded possibley incorrectly? The truck has a pretty significant dent on the driver's side of the bumper. Just wondering....

[brute4c]

Due to how cheep Jeep was, they were welded in this strange way.

[kwai]

"death wobble" can be caused by several things:
1. Mis-alignment of the front end. Check your toe-in.
2. Balance the tires (hard to do with the stock wheels and usually not the problem).
3. check all the ball joints

[Barrman]

Pick the front of the truck up and support the axle with a pair of jack stands. Grab the top of a tire and try to pull/push it. Any movement you get there will lead to "death wobble." Find the source, bearings, king pins, loose lugs, etc... Once that movement is gone on both sides, try shaking the tire so the steering linkage gets moved. Again, fix any movement you find in the tie rod ends, drag link or steering box. I did all the above and found everything to be great.

Then, if you still have it like I did. Change your front tire psi. Try them both at 20 and see what happens going down the road. Repeat up until around 50 or so. If you still have it, swap tires around and repeat the psi test.



When I was still running NDT's, I would get the "death wobble" at the same spot on the same road at the same speed every day going to work. It took me months to find the right tire and psi combination to get rid of it. Of course, the wobble just moved to another speed/road condition range. Once I got the big block in, I found I could just power through the wobble at 42-45 and be ok on the top end. Then, I could slow down into that speed without any trouble.

I put the XZL tires on and all troubles went away. Until last year at the National FE in Buena Vista, Colorado. I had a flat and put one of Binford's XL tires on the front to make a trip to town. Severe death wobble above 28 mph. Put 4 XZL's back on and no problems.

[Dustbuster]

Thanks for the info. It's probably a combination of all those things. It happens less once the tires are warm but it's still mildly there. I will get it all chased down and fixed. I'm tickled that the shackle is welded correctly though.