SuperCharger to HEMI Transition?

[gbaumann]

Sorry guys, no 0-60 or sound byte today. I GOT DEATH WOBBLE! Scariest moment ever. Steering wheel went crazy and came out of my hands. Felt like the front end was off the ground and trying to tear itself apart! I'm going to re-read Ross' thread on diagnosis and fix. Guys at OK4WD will get me in ASAP and think I'm headed for a JKS or Metalcloak trackbar. They also recommend an aftermarket tie rod and some other part (I don't remember). They don't like the use of heavy duty steering stabilizers. Let me know your thoughts.

[Timmy]

Sorry guys, no 0-60 or sound byte today. I GOT DEATH WOBBLE! Scariest moment ever. Steering wheel went crazy and came out of my hands. Felt like the front end was off the ground and trying to tear itself apart! I'm going to re-read Ross' thread on diagnosis and fix. Guys at OK4WD will get me in ASAP and think I'm headed for a JKS or Metalcloak trackbar. They also recommend an aftermarket tie rod and some other part (I don't remember). They don't like the use of heavy duty steering stabilizers. Let me know your thoughts.

To help find the source of your death wobble, remove your steering stabilizer all together while doing some low speed testing. The purpose of the stabilizer is to improve how the steering feels, not to stop death wobble. You should be able to hit a 2' pot hole at 60 mph and not get death wobble WITHOUT a steering stabilizer.

In my case, the entire source of my wobble came from a worn out passenger side tie rod end on my drag link bar and a worn out drivers side tie rod end on the tie rod bar. Since the tie rod end on the drag link passenger side is forged, I had to purchase a new drag link (went with a Synergy one.) For the tie rod bar, I ordered an OEM aftermarket replacement tie rod end for about $20. Put both on and the problem was solved.

I found both of these issues by using a set of pliers and putting them above and below the tie rod end and trying to compress the fittings. Each side had about 1/16" of play in them. If they were tight there, I would have jacked up the axle on both sides and then had someone move the steering wheel back and forth to see if any of the tie rod ends were lagging in movement at all. There is a good video on youtube showing this.

Point being... You can solve this yourself, and usually for cheaper than you realize. It takes VERY LITTLE wear on your tie rod ends to get death wobble. In all cases though, please don't go down the road of a beefed up steering stabilizer. That just masks the real problem. You should be able to drive the Jeep all day long without the stabilizer. In fact, I was just about to pull my stabilizer off in order to isolate a problem of the Jeep pulling a bit to the left now that I have my new upper/lower control arms on. Because I have a gas charged stabilizer, it doesn't auto-center at neutral but instead always wants to extend, thus, it might be the reason my Jeep always pulls to one side slightly, or it could be that I didn't get a measurement on a control arm right.

[Pznivy]

It takes VERY LITTLE wear on your tie rod ends to get death wobble.

^^^THIS!!!!!!

It tiny fractions of wear throw off the whole front end and you think your jeep has a huge problem, when really, its an hour of sniffing out the problem, and then a second hour of replacing the worn out end.

mechanics know it feels like the end of the world behind the wheel, and they will make you pay for it. So make sure they know your not a dummy. They will sell you a full suspension change in some cases if they think they can get away with it. At the end of the day its a $50 part from the dealer and your fixed.