‘91 Sport 4x4

Recent F/R springs, tires, alignment, rebuilt F/R driveshafts, calipers rebuilt. 17” rims with spacers (came with vehicle).

After the alignment the driver’s side wheel lost the weight that was installed on it, but that didn’t seem to have any effect on how it drove. I did take it out to JTree for a few days while in SoCal, and noticed some noise in the pass side front. I figured it’s a control arm bushing and plan to replace both sides uppers/lowers. Still, it’s been driving great on-road. Drove it cross country recently, loaded and towing a trailer. No problem.

Recently found driver’s side front caliper was sticking, so I rebuilt both of them. Now I have a wobble at 45-60 mph, most noticeable at 55 mph. Looking at the d/s front wheel while driving I can see it’s wobbling left to right. I thought I may not have installed one of the wheels correctly so I made sure both fronts were seated well. While off the ground both wheels spin freely and appear to be on correctly.

What could have possibly changed pre/post caliper rebuild? All I did was jack up each side, one at a time, remove wheels and calipers, and reinstall.

?

 

Maybe just a coincidental wheel bearing or ball joint failure? Maybe the abnormal pressures of sitting at an angle (while the opposite side was jacked up) finally pushed something over the edge?

 

Will be following this. I have a wobble at 55 mph too but only sometimes. Sometimes its pretty bad and other times its not even there. The only things I have not replaced are the wheel bearings and ball joints at this point.

 

Possible it’s coincidental, whatever it is, but it seems unlikely that lifting each wheel 1” to remove the wheel could have put stresses on things that just driving it doesn’t. I took the wheel off that I’m pretty sure lost a weight, currently waiting for it to be balanced. While I had the jack under there, I checked the ball joint by prying up underneath the wheel with a bar. I didn’t feel any play. I’ll check the other one after I reinstall the wheel I’m waiting on.

I think the next step will be to check the torque on the control arms.

 

Yeah, I'm totally speculating.

I had a wobble at 50-ish mph on my previous Jeep, but it was constant and I chased that wobble for weeks before finally discovering it was a bad tire (the original spare after 12 years of zero use had shockingly warped!). The tire appeared fine - there was nothing visually that either I or the tire shop that balanced it noticed, but it was DEFINITELY the cause of my wobble.

Let us know if the control arm torquing helps or if you find out anything illuminating from the shop.

 

Check the tie rods.

 

So I got the wheel balanced. They put a good sized weight on both the inside and outside of the rim. Previously it only had weights on the inside. Took it for a test drive, twice took it up to 55 mph on smooth roads... wobble is gone. So far.

Still a bit flummoxed as to why a wobble would show up out of the blue if it was caused by an out of balance wheel. You’d think it would have been there all along.