my 96 jeep cherokee classic has had death wobble for about a year at speeds of over 50, so i try to stick to back roads. But recently the front suspension (seems like the front) has started to make this loud rattle noise when i drive on a slightly bumpy (paved) road. It sounds pretty annoying and you can even kinda feel it rattle'in through the floorpanels a little bit. My brother knows quite a bit about cars and he said its probably the bushings being worn. Anyone else have this problem before? what bushings do i need? I just got 4 new goodyear wranglers and 4 new shocks and an alignment.

dont really care about the death wobble too much, but i want the rattle gone, but if the bushings fix the death wobble too, that would be great.

what do you guys think?

 

Check the sway bar bushings, the ones that mount the sway bar to the uni-rails. There are two bolts per bushing. Also check bearings. You can have someone push up and down on the bumper while you listen for the rattle.

Another possibility is U-joints. TrueBlueXJ had this issue recently. A rattle coming from the front end and it was his u-joints (axle shafts). Check the driveshaft u-joints too.

 

Yeah, I thought mine might be swaybar related, and actually one of the endlinks was loose, but after tightening it up the rattle was still there. Ended up being the driver's side axle u-joint. A pretty easy fix, nothing you can't do with a jack and a decent set of sockets.

Check the bearings and the swaybar end-links, and if neither of those seem to be the culprit, reach behind your tire and check the u-joints for play. There shouldn't be ANY at all.