Honestly no idea what the 2nd stabilizer is for I'd honestly pitch it, also just bite the bullet and get a sway bar(Find a Grand Cherokee v8 sway bar). After that, just plan on rebuilding the whole nine yards, its easier to hit it all then narrow it down. I had to rebuild everything that attached to my axle to get the death wobble to stop. And on top of that I bought new tires because the ones I had you couldn't even road force balance well enough for the tire not to wobble. Honestly just plan on spending a fair amount.

 

I plan on rebuilding everything steering related in the next year or so. I want to get most of it done now (tax season) lol. I found a steering kit from ruffstuff.com that includes gm 1ton TREs with some 1.5" tubing for the tie rod bar and drag link. It's $250 and you have to weld the tre to the tubing. It's a y link.

I don't plan to do major wheeling. I'm in El Paso tx so there are rocks to crawl but not much. More so for a daily driver with weekend trail rides with my daughter

I also wanna upgrade my lift bc it was a pieced together 2" lift which did not include longer control arms.

You guys have any suggestions on cheaper routes without sacrificing quality?

 

Do you like your Rough Country set up?

 

Holy hell that thing is a mess. Can you get a picture that's dead nuts straight on from the front? The bolt that's right above the axle side track bar mount is where the track bar should actually go. But based on the angles there, you need an adjustable track bar. I would venture to guess that this is actually your entire problem. No idea what the second stabilizer is for, but it looks like an off the shelf part. It's not hurting anything, so I would leave it for now. Definitely check your ball joints, TRE's, and get a track bar, then see where you're at.

 

I'm gonna replace the stabilizer with a charged stabilizer. What would the adjustable track bar achieve?

 

It's all based on geometry. When you lift an XJ, the track bar stays the same length but the angle changes (greater angle off of a horizontal axis). The end result is that the axle is pulled toward the driver side because the track bar hasn't changed length. Think of it like a triangle with the track bar as the hypotenuse. As you move the frame and axle further apart vertically, the vertical side of the triangle gets longer, but the horizontal side gets shorter. Make sense?

The ideal position of a track bar is a little complicated. Basically, they're all shaped like a Z, just not as dramatically bent. Look at some pictures on google to see what I'm talking about. The center section should be parallel to the drag link, and the ends should be parallel to the axle tubes. This geometry makes a world of difference in the handling and on road behavior. A lot of death wobble stems from either incorrect track bar angles or insecure mounting points. The axle side mount is a horrible design and can create a lot of wear on the bolt hole, so it gets wallowed out a lot and can cause death wobble. It's also possible that the ball joint on the frame side end is worn. Or the frame side mount can be loose, but this is much less likely on a stock one because they are usually a PITA to get off.

To give you an idea of how important the track bar is for stopping death wobble, I'll share my story quick. I bought an adjustable track bar to replace mine and it came with an axle side mount to replace the factory one. Installed it and everything was fine, but after driving it for a day I ran into a lot of issues. I couldn't drive over ANY bumps in the road without causing an extremely violent death wobble. As it turned out, both the axle side and frame side were just a tiny bit loose, and death wobble caused every single bolt to back off a significant amount. I tightened everything, and it came back two more times until it all finally stayed tight enough.

 

the only rough country part I have is the tie rod sleeve that goes from passenger side to the middle of the other tie rod. but its way better than stock. You can grab the stock sleeve with your hand and push it in and out the rough country one doesn't budge. But I'm very happy with that rough country tie rod. I would recommend it to anybody with 6.5" or less that doesn't go with a crossover steering setup. I read that if you do more than 6.5" with that tie rod it isn't long enough.

 

I started out similar to what you have it seems. 96 XJ with lift springs up front and add a leaf in the rear. I added a 2" spacer and a 1" block in the back. It had the front sway bar but I removed the rear and continued to use the front for a while until my issue went away. I had the front end aligned since they recommend you get one after a lift.
I chased DW for about a year where I changed out everything. I first bought a stabilizer bar and it didnt help, then I replaced the lower control arm bushings and I still had the DW issue. My steering was in great shape so I didnt change anything there. I then bought a rough country adj. track bar and mount, but still had DW. The only thing I had not chased was ball joints, so I changed them out. Once they were in, I drove it a bunch and had no issues so then I removed the front sway bar and I have no issues whatsoever.
If you're new to the game and everyone has their opinions about what should be changed, I say use all those opinions. Change out everything as it usually is all WORN OUT. Do the work yourself and save some money! It might take you awhile, but its worth it. Jeeps are not bought their built!
On a side note: You may want to replace your transmission mount and motor mounts! I bought the trans mount from Autozone and the motor mounts from Brown Dog.
Good luck.

 

Just an update. I ordered a 1ton TRE steering kit from JCR Offroad, and an adj. track bar from JKS. Hoping that will take care of a good bit of it. The guys from JCR said they haven't been running stabilizers on their setups for years and it does fine without it. I'll try it without it for a few months, but I have a feeling I will need it. Heard and seen good reviews from both companies. And great customer service from the guys at JCR.

 

There's a pretty negative opinion of stabilizers on here because they can mask vibes. I personally think they are a good idea because they don't hurt anything and can dull down small vibes that aren't worth the trouble to chase down. JMO.

 

So I installed my JKS Tracbar but I couldn't get it in the original bolt hole on the axle side. It was sheered off by PO. I bolted into another existing holes about an inch away from the original hole.

Death wobble returned in about 2 weeks and seems just as bad. My guess is the bolt is loose or everything is just off because it's not the original bolt hole.

Side note: I installed JCRs 1ton utk steering kit. I don't think that has anything to do with it but I could be wrong.

 

Everything has to be incredibly tight with the track bar. The perfect fitment would be if you needed to tap the bolt through both the bushing and the hole with a hammer. Make sure you're using grade 8 or higher hardware with a lock washer to make sure. You really want to tighten the bolt down, and check the body side bolts too if you removed the factory bracket. Mine walked a lot on me in the first couple weeks.

 

The hole that it is in right now is actually a little wallowed out. But there was a track bar relocation bracket on there. It has a nice clean hole. Maybe I'll try that!

 

You'll never get it to work properly with that hole then. Can you post pictures of the relocation bracket? Usually people only relocate the axle end if they do an OTK steering, so I'm questioning this bracket. You have two options for using the existing hole though. You can have the hole plugged and then drill it out again, or you might even be able to drill it out a little bit larger as is to get a nice clean hole. That depends on how wallowed it is though. Drill the bushing to match, get a proper sized bolt, and that might work.