rfoley316

So I have a wobble in my front end that I'm not quite sure what it is, and I haven't been able to find anything similar. A little background - a couple weeks ago i lifted my rig 5.5" and put some 33's that I got for free from a friend. I had some nasty death wobble which was cured by an alignment and it has since ridden like a dream, I even took it on a 5+ hour round-trip drive to the beach this past weekend driving ~70mph the whole way. The only issue I had was air seeping out the bead, so I pulled the wheels off and am having them sand-blasted and painted.
So I am currently running my stock wheels/tires, and now whenever I hit a bump, the front end waves back and forth a bit, and while I wouldn't quite call it DW, it is more movement than I would like, considering I usually take the highway to get to work. My question is, is the problem simply the stock wheel/lift combo? and if not, should I try and fix the problem, or just put the 33's back on and call it a day? My thing with that is it seems like the larger tires may be hiding a larger issue, much like a steering stabilizer would. Any help would be awesome guys, thanks!

Jeepxj1234

You still have the sway bar on?

rfoley316

Yeah, front sway bar is still on

77olds

It could seriously be anything related to the front end.

Caster angle (which a lot of alignment shops flat out ignore), ball joints, tie rod ends, track bar, pitman arm, steering gear, tire balance (even a chunk of grease stuck to the inside of the wheel can throw it off), or really anything up there that is loose or worn can cause death wobble.

Caster angle seems to be the most overlooked factor, and I've seen a LOT of people on this forum flat out deny that it has any effect, some of them even heatedly argue about it... but it DOES matter, and CAN cause DW. Especially when you have a big lift like 5.5".

rfoley316

The caster shouldn't be off, I went to a good alignment shop, and actually paid extra for them to do it right, caster and all, the control arms are all new, adjustable ones. Most of my front end parts are new with the lift, the only thing I could think of would be the pitman arm. Would an upgraded pitman arm/trackbar drop bar potentially fix this? cause my angles are good as far as that is concerned, so I believe I would have to do both to keep the lines parallel, correct?
The strange thing to me is that this is all coming out with stock tires, were the larger, heavier tires masking the problem?

rfoley316

Also, I'm not sure that I would call it death wobble, unless death wobble is just any front end movement. The only reason I don't call this "death" wobble is I had some nasty wobble before the alignment, as in wobble that made me think my teeth were gonna fall out and front end blow apart across the road, haha.

rfoley316

Any thoughts guys? I guess my main question is are the 33's hiding the wobble like a steering stabilizer would, and is this okay? I'll be putting them back on this weekend, and I'm wondering if I should try and track down a culprit before I do so. Thanks for the replies and any future help!

ZINGGG

No the 33s shouldn't be hiding the death wobble. What condition are your old stock tires in? Are the pressures matching in the front 2 tires? Are they balanced?

What else was replaced in the front end along with that lift? So you have new adjustable uppers and lowers? What else? Extended sway bar links? Adjustable track bar?

Are your track bar and drag link parallel?

rfoley316

The stock tires are at the end of their life, just about at (if not at) the wear bar and one of them is bald, but that was put on the drivers side rear. The tires are at whatever pressure thy were at when I took em off a couple weeks ago when I did the lift.
Along with the CA's I have an adjustable track bar and extended sway bar links. And the drag link and track bar lines are parallel, but the drag link is stock, so the angle is a little more intense than it was at stock height.

ZINGGG

Well thats probably why right there. The tires I mean

rfoley316

The tired tires? But I didn't have a problem before, is the lift exaggerating the problem?

ZINGGG

Sure could be the case. Also go through again and make sure every nut and bolt is as tight as it is supposed to be

Vincenza V

Had a belt that was bad in my Ranger, shook the truck violently. I swore it was a suspension or steering component. New tires up front made it ride nearly new. You couldn't tell from looking at the tire (an untrained eye I mean) it had a bad belt. Just a though.

ZINGGG

Interesting...

Although I don't think there would be a difference between how the belt is working in 33" tires vs. stock tires. Because remember that the OP says the wobbling goes away with the 33s on.

OP, I'm assuming that if the tires are that old and bald that they haven't been balanced in ages?

rfoley316

That is interesting, i wouldn't even think of a belt in a tire breaking, but it makes sense, it would send it out of balance. The only thing is it only does it when I hit a bump, and i never had issues before the lift, though I suppose that the lift is exaggerating an issue that I couldn't notice before.

Ages is about right, haha, its been over two years and around 45k miles. They were balanced when they were mounted when i bought em, and that was it, cause I never had any issues. I just figured you only need to do it once and never even thought about it. I did rotate them every other oil change though.