Death wobble / wheel bearing play

[eevrek]

Hello,

Problem
- death wobble over 50 mph
-pulsing while braking during and after death wobble
pushed on the 12 and 6 on the wheel and has a slight play.

Should I change brake pads, rotors, and wheel bearings?

Also, Does anyone have a parts list for a whole rebuild for the front axle, my birfield is leaking as well.

 

[mudgudgeon]

The thing to do immediately is tighten the preload on wheel bearings.
That's no reason not to do that straight away, order parts for whatever else you need to do.

You can tighten wheel bearings in an hour per side, maybe two if you're not super familiar with the process.

If you need to drive the car, and planning a knuckle rebuild in the near future, just tighten the bearings, no need to re-pack them. Clean the outer hub before you open anything up so you can keep it all clean

 

[eevrek]

The thing to do immediately is tighten the preload on wheel bearings.
That's no reason not to do that straight away, order parts for whatever else you need to do.

You can tighten wheel bearings in an hour per side, maybe two if you're not super familiar with the process.

If you need to drive the car, and planning a knuckle rebuild in the near future, just tighten the bearings, no need to re-pack them. Clean the outer hub before you open anything up so you can keep it all clean

any threads or videos on that? Not familiar with tightening them.

 

[mudgudgeon]

any threads or videos on that? Not familiar with tightening them.

Search youtube for videos by Otramm

 

[robnicko]

Knuckle / king pin bearings can also be worn / loose

 

[HZJ75 FARMER]

Hello,

Problem
- death wobble over 50 mph
-pulsing while braking during and after death wobble
pushed on the 12 and 6 on the wheel and has a slight play.

Should I change brake pads, rotors, and wheel bearings?

Also, Does anyone have a parts list for a whole rebuild for the front axle, my birfield is leaking as well.

Slightly loose wheel bearings unlikely to cause wobbles.

More likely caused by king pin bearings, unbalanced tyres, tie rod ends, suspension bushes.

Pulsing during braking more likely to be warped brake rotors.

 

[eevrek]

any threads or videos on that? Not familiar with tightening them.

Slightly loose wheel bearings unlikely to cause wobbles.

More likely caused by king pin bearings, unbalanced tyres, tie rod ends, suspension bushes.

Pulsing during braking more likely to be warped brake rotors.

Check video please, I don’t know if this is “slight”

 

[Rusty Marlin]

The loose wheel bearings can spin the outer inner races against the spindle and wear them too. When you do get to the rebuilding part, check for spindle wear on the bottom (weight bearing side) of the spindles. Replace if worn.

Death wobble is probably bushings, as mentioned above. To check your TRE's, I've found the best way is to get a partner to saw the steering wheel back and forth, just a little bit, enough to load the steering components while I wrap my hand around the TRE. With my hand wrapped around the TRE I can feel any relative motion between the parts. When the are good, they feel rock solid, when bad there is a shift between the components.

Edited--not adequately caffeinated when I wrote that.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Slightly loose wheel bearings unlikely to cause wobbles.

More likely caused by king pin bearings, unbalanced tyres, tie rod ends, suspension bushes.

Pulsing during braking more likely to be warped brake rotors.

I've had multiple vehicles with a front end shake, and pulsing brake pedal fixed be servicing wheel bearings.
Current work truck being one of.

If the pulsing brakes happens more when gently washing off speed , or gently coming to a stop at red lights etc, then i will bet money on the loose bearings already identified as being the issue.
A quick service on bearings is low hanging fruit, and a couple of hours work and zero dollars in to know for sure if it's the primary issue.

Absolutely there could be other issues contributing. Death wobbles is rarely one single issue.

My work truck above had wobbles and a brake shudder last year, swapping bearings fixed it completely. Recently the wobbles started to come back. It needed a tire rotation and this took 95% of my shake away, but I still have a very slightly loose wheel bearing on one side (Ferd eff juan fitty which requires a $300 hub to deal with the non-serviceable puny bearings)

 

[MissahPapaJ]

If getting into the bearings you may wanna order these I’ll usually order a few sets of the second part number just to have on hand, the Toyota adjusting locks seem to be superior to the aftermarket ones IMO, you can get bearings and the hub seal from rock auto for about 50/60$ or less, I’m not in the fact checking business.

Also the parts will be more from your local dealership but they’re reasonably inexpensive.

 

[TreadingLight]

You can buy a knuckle kit with all the bits and bobs from vendors like Terrain Taimer.

A knuckle job is a right of passage and something I would do to baseline any cruiser I didn't have history on and that I wanted reliability from. The job is messy and requires some experience to do right.

If it were me, and I didn't want to pay a reputable Land Cruiser shop the 8 hours or so of labor, and I didn't mind getting really greasy, I'd watch some vids and I'd make friends with my local land cruiser club and see if you can get someone to give you a hand.

But as stated above, you can probably buy some time by adjusting the bearing preload.

As for brakes, you gotta take them apart and inspect them to know if they need servicing.