Death Wobble (FAQ?) (1 Viewer)

[Hugh Heifer]

I know my steering box is worn out. It leaks everywhere and has a lot of play. I think in my case I am goin to tackle the Saginaw switch and at the same time do a full axle rebuild. For me there is no reason to try to put band aids on any place else with the steering box the way it looks.
FAQ comes through again.

 

[winkle]

I just fixed mine on my 73. Turns out 2 1/4 " toe is too much I stole the front axle out of my old truggy and never set the toe on it

 

[Benovich]

First post, thanks for your patience. I experienced a very scary high speed death wobble in my non-power steering '77 FJ40. After some discussions I rebuilt the steering center arm, replaced the rag joint, and some of the tie rod ends. I am going to check balancing and tire pressure but I keep those maintained well. With a four inch lift, one friend suggested it could be missing shims? Any thoughts?

 

[Fast Eddy]

With a four inch lift, one friend suggested it could be missing shims? Any thoughts?

That will cause overly quick steering and it won't 'center', not death wobble. Did you rotate the tires? How are the leaf spring bushings?

 

[CruiserOCD]

I noticed after doing a shackle reversal that my issue went away. Seems like slot of bounce and drift when the shackles are left og with larger tires.


Dooug

 

[G Man]

To all of you that contributed to this thread - THANK YOU!! I purchased the 72 TLC in January and had no history of the death wobble until last week when I was going 35mph and hit a crack in the road. Wow, that was freaky. Then, nothing. Until two nights ago when my wife was driving and, hitting nothing, got the death wobble. She FREAKED! So, upon reading all of this thread, I realized I am not even close to being qualified to solve this problem. Off to the shop. Thanks, everyone.

 

[75Ute]

I put 8 new bushes on the front leaves, tightened everything up and replaced the dampner with an Old Man Emu replacement, STILL WOBBLED!!

Then spoke to the guy that sold me the new steel rims because someone suggested they might be the problem. He took off one of the wheel nuts and asked where I got them. I told him I replaced them all with some I bought on a 4x4 website. He went and retrieved a nut from his shop and told me my problem was the taper on my new nuts. I bought some new nuts from him, went home swapped them over, went for a test drive and NO WOBBLE!

The problem nut is the one on the left and the correct one is on the right.

 

[1 Bad FN FJ]

If yu just went thru the axle, I would check the pre load on the knuckles. If you went with 8 lbs when assembling it, it going to get looser after driving it. Easiest place to check. Kevin.

 

[65swb45]

Karma that this thread surfaced again. I chased down DW in the 45 recently, double checking bushings, wheel bearings, TREs, SBX. It got real bad last Thursday in Death Valley. Of course, I thought I'd bent a rim when I hit a washout at speed.

Rolling into Mojave, my right front tire was loosing air. When I pulled it to install the spare, I discovered it was separating, on the inside! Another 33x9.5 bites the dust.

With the spare installed....DW gone!