I've been chasing a tendency to wobble in my 2000 WJ and after replacing everything I could think of, we found the PITMAN ARM was worn out in the splines where it fit onto the steering box. It seems we didn't have it tight enough after replacing the steering box last year and it wore the splines in the arm but not on the shaft. So now it's got Rusty's Offroad LCAs (front and rear), Track Bar, and Steering Damper plus new tierod, draglink, and all 4 ends, plus a new pitman arm. Now the ride is tight and solid, almost like my XJ except smoother.

 

That is really great news!

 

The main reason I posted that was it was something most people would not have thought could be a problem, but my great friend and mechanic found it! When he took the nut off, it slid right off with it. When he put the new one on, he had to tap it on with hammer and large socket. The steering has NO looseness at all now. The Rusty's steering damper is now helping to build up my arm muscles however! U-turns and K-turns are killing me.

 

I know I have plans on redoing the front end of my WJ someday soon, and I was thinking to keep this in mind should the 45-55 mph wobble that mine has not go away after I get some of the suspension parts replaced on it.

I would not describe what mine does as a death wobble. It is wrong though, whatever it is?

 

One thing I have decided is a questionable point is all the newer lower control arms made today for the WJ have oval shaped shock absorbing bushing in the axle ends that do provide a smoother ride, but wear out quickly if you do much more than ride pavement. Moog started this several years ago, but now everybody makes them that way. My original 2000 factory arms weren't like that and my first replacement sets weren't either. I bought Rusty's Offroad stock length front and rear lowers and the ride is much stiffer, but gives better control and road feel. I haven't replaced the rear upper 3-point link yet, but that's still good as are the front uppers. I'm still using a stock track bar, but use a Rusty's steering damper. When I needed to replace the tierod and draglink, I thought the 4.7 ones would be heavier like the V8 ZJs are, but no, they are the same part numbers for the 4.0 and the 4.7. I'm disappointed because the adjusting tubes are super thin. I'm using Monroe OESpectrum shocks. I can throw that big old whale around like an XJ now and it feels tight.

What mine was doing was feeling like a slight tire imbalance at around 55 and disappearing around 60. Then one night I hit a pothole at around 55 and it went into uncontrolled oscillations, in other words, death wobble! We checked the entire front end over and couldn't find anything wrong so rebalanced the tires. It got steadily worse until it would do it at anything over 45. Then I put the front LCAs on it and it helped a bit, but not a lot, replaced the rear LCAs because they were shot anyway. Then the added stiffness caused the draglink to snap one night when trying to get it stopped from 55 and the rest is history.