Well I did it. Months of work, countless dollars, lost hair. So many battles lost but baby....I won the war.

I got my death wobble. I was under the truck today, and the light was just in the right place, and I see behind the steering box, this plate, some sort of spacer. I see in the lower corner a crack around the bolt hole. What the......?

To make a long story short, the pics below are what I found when I got the thing apart.

Grabbed a spacer and the bolts from a bone 91 up back, threw em in, took her for a spin....BAM!!!!!! no more death wobble.

Worth a look

 

bump

 

holy crap im surprised it was staying together at all

 

well played on laying under the truck and just looking... besides being mildly entertaining every time... serves a vital function... kudos!

 

You know that was the thing. It WAS all together pinched right in between the steering box and the frame. Once we broke the box free, 90% of it fell out in pieces. I am so psyched.

 

it might be obvious but I dont see it... what is this?

 

It's called the "steering gear adapter". It sits between the steering box and the frame rail. With all the front end parts I replaced (and the list was massive), it was the one part you couldn't see without removing the box.

 

Way to go! I've heard some people mention that thing as being a weak link, and seen some aftermarket upgrades on different sites. How do you plan to replace it?

Ok, Sorry,, You grabbed one from a 91.

 

Yeah....it's cast magnesium. If the one from the scavenge truck was NG, I read you could use 1/2" steel plate and make holes in it for the bolts (luckily I didn't have to go that route) but it would beef up the inner frame rail though.

I have a 95 ZJ in the yard too. Didn't look and wasn't sure if it used the same plate, but for my 98, the one from the 91 was the same Jeep p/n so you can get em from just about any scraper.

 

OMG man! That is some scary stuff. I read this and then went right back out to the garage to look at mine! It seems good, but thanks for posting this. That's not a problem I would have even thought of with my vib issue otherwise. We'll see how things go after the tire balance, or shaft replacement. Mine is parked for now till I get it worked out.

 

Too bad huh? It'd be nice to get er' right between the eyes (the DW).

I guess I lucked out in that the tab I could see actually had a crack in it. Had it not been for that I would never have seen the real damage was hidden behind the steering box.

In retrospect, I guess another tell tale sign was that one of the bolts was corroded into the bracket and another bolt was just totally corroded. Before I took it apart I tried to re-torque the box and it seemed tight. It wasn't until I got everything apart that I realized it wasn't tight, it was corrwelded (corrosion welded ).