I had the 315's on before I put the leveling kit and had no probs with the death wobble. But I did have some tire rub at full lock. I guess a little tire rub is better than bouncing off the Fwy......

 

I have had the 315 and the 2" leveling kit on my truck for about 9000 miles and just got the death wobble yesterday on a trip. I checked tires and everything looks good and balanced out alright. The ball joints do seem to have some play in them and the passenger side wheel bearing feels like it could be going bad. Do I need to take the leveling kit out before i take it to the dealer to have the ball joints and wheel bearing checked? (22000 miles) I do plan on buying new shocks and the front stabilizer shock. Any suggestions? Thanks fot the help.

Richie

 

Caster!

 

Well, took of the levelinig kit and put the stock tires back on. Wow, what a difference. It feels like I'm riding on rails. Hit bumps at 80mph with no wobble or shimmer at all. Tires look small compared to the 315's, but the ride is fantastic. I guess my rig just didn't want those big tires on him. Thanks again to all who chimed in to help me fix the problem.........Chris

 

I had the same. 315's no problem.... 2" spacer.... wobble.

I changed my caster to as far as it could go... still has the tendancy.

Next I will be looking at buying or making components that stop it.

People just mention adjustments and parts to throw at the problem but NO ONE knows the actual reason? Interesting that Dodge changed from Dana to AAM axles but the problem still surfaces. Has to be the four link coil sprung design.

I wonder if the T-rex system stops it?

 

Why are you guys installing the leveling kit if the 315's fit without rubbing? If they did rub...where are they rubbing at? I am getting ready to put some 315's on and now not sure if this is what I want to do with all this talk about rubbing..death wobble etc...help.

 

It is a 4 link problem...a relationship of the control arm lengths, angle of control arms, and caster. Jeep GC's do it to unless they are dialed in.

Hoot, what caster did you try? I can't believe it did not correct the problem, unless we are talking about two differrent things. Bid tires are going to ride differently than the stockers...period! Maybe people are having a hard time accepting that.

Hoot, get a bigger lift that was engineered correctly and put those 315's back on! You will be happy!

 

Hey, I know bigger tires ride different and create more bounce and other changes.

I didn't put the truck on a rack, I just increased caster to the max to see if there would be a difference. Doesn't seem to have made much difference at all. No problems under 60 mph but above that I have to be aware. I think the increased height between the upper and lower spring seat is aggrivating it. Remember, some stock trucks get it too. Are you saying caster must be close to a certain spec or either too much or not enough is bad?

What's the deal about track bars? So many have said replacing the track bar fixes it but on the Bullet Proof site they are saying it's more than that and they still have no engineered solution fot the later models. Possibly soon though.

 

See below for some info from other 'death wobble' sites for the earlier Dodges. I have a lot of miles on high speed motorcycles and based on what I've observed I agree with the observation that you need to make sure that nothing is loose, the linkages are strong, tires are at proper air pressure, and that the tires are sized for the frame/steering/weight/speed/conditions. Big lightly aired tires on a heavy truck with light rear end at high speed seems to be asking for trouble. On bikes there are at least a couple of common wobble frequencies, one for the frame and one for the steering, which are commonly excited by rotational frquency of the tires. One of my bikes start a steering wobble at multiples of 40 mph if I was only lightly touching the throttle with two fingers, and it would go away when I put both hands on the handlebar. I never had a problem at speeds up to 140 mph. A truck with large heavy tires that starts a wobble will be very difficult to control.

http://www.dodgetrucksteeringproblem...W=&TOPIC_ID=78

Okay folks. Here is the skinny on the steering woes. There is no simple fix or single piece to replace if you already have the "Death Wobble". At this point there are many badly worn parts. I'll start what the root cause is and progress through what a few possible solutions are. It all begins at the track bar. Dodge woefully under-engineered this piece. Its job is to keep the axle from moving laterally side to side. It connects to the frame on one end via a ball joint and to the axle on the other via soft rubber bushing. There are two flaws here. The ball joint cannot take the tremendous lateral force of the track bar and the durometer of the rubber bushing is too low (too soft). The lateral movement of the axle wears out the upper and lower ball joint on the steering knuckles. At this point you can get the big bad "DW". With this much slop, there is constant back and forth movements on the tie rod ends, drag link, and pitman arm ball joints, and they suffer a premature death. The fix is not simple. You can replace all this stuff every couple of years, or you can go aftermarket. DT Engineering http://www.dtprofab.com/ makes a replacement track bar kit that eliminates the track bar ball joint, but is still has the rubber bushing on one end. I'm working on a deal to get just the frame bracket w/o the track bar. Bullet Proof Steering http://performanceunlimited.com/steering/ has a track bar that has excellent rod ends on both ends, but they have no frame bracket. Other companies have track bars with rod ends on both ends, but the ends are crap and will wear out and rattle like crazy in a year. Bullet Proof is the only company that carries a decent rod end IMHO. Get the track bar fixed and replace the upper and lower ball joints, and you'll be on the road to a safe and happy truck. For an ultimate fix, replace the upper and lower knuckle ball joints with King Pins outer "C's", and never worry about it again. King Pins are bomb proof. I'll make another post for the rest of the steering and talk about Luke's Links.

Okay - now for the steering. Again, Bullet Proof http://performanceunlimited.com/steering makes some great stuff, but it is all custom. Their products are first class, but my experience with them is that you have to have some mechanical ability. You’ll be responsible for all of the measurements and ensuring clearances. Most of the steering kits require relocating the passenger sway bar mount, which means fabrication work. Luke's Links http://www.lukeslink.com are good solutions, if you want to use Dodge steering components. Dodge makes good tie rods. Lots of hard core Jeeps run Dodge linkages. I would not, however, recommend the Luke’s Link for the track bar frame end. Not because the Luke's Link won’t handle it, but because it is a bad design all together. Go have a mount welded up and buy a BPS track bar. Luke’s will handle the rest of the joints, they last longer than stock, and are fully rebuildable. I have not heard or had any experiences with Moog that are better that the factory stuff. If you’ll get the track bar and knuckle ball joints under control, the steering system will not get to much abuse. The finishing touch is to stabilize the steering box. There is a lot of torque and twisting at the frame. The frame seems to be able to take the twisting, but twisting means the tires are moving and the wheel is not = death wobble. A beautiful fix is the steering brace from Solid Steel Ind. http://www.solidsteel.ca/. This stops the wander problem. Very slick!

 

Thinking about the problem some more, as I recall the weight distribution with the diesel unloaded is about 2x up front compared to the back. If the front and rear springs are set up for similar loads you might have a condition where the front and rear could have a resonance that reinforces each other if there is inadequate damping. I'll guess that a worst case condition would be soft shocks, larger than stock tires, tires with soft sidewalls (less than load range E as max load doesn't indicate sidewall stiffness), low tire pressure, high speed, and a good bump to get things going, maybe a bump on one tire. The truck would then starting rocking back and forth on the springs, worst case probably being corner to corner as the shock on one wheel would be trying to dampen the load, and with the truck diving corner to corner the the steering would be forced side to side.

Solutions would be at least stock damping, not much bigger than stock tire size, load range E, recommended tire pressures, and maybe some load so that you don't end up with close to 2x the load on the front compared to the back.

I'm just a dumb working stiff though, not a vehicle design engineer, so it'd be nice to hear comments from others.

 

I just got back from surf fishing.

I air my tires down before going on the beach. Staying two days, I only aired up to 35 psi for the second day since I'd be airing down again.

I never aired down from 35 psi..... drove home at that pressure. Seems to be a significant change over those DW inducing bumps. I never even got a slight shake on any bump.

Try that just to confirm my observations..

 

take the leveling kit off and use the 315 ,they will work without the leveling kit. tires alone works great on my truck.

 

I got a set of 37x13.50x17 from a friend. They have about half tread life left. I get wobble at 40mph. Took it to a tire shop and they would not even look at the alignment the guy kept saying that the tires need balancing. I said ok, about 3 hours later he calls and said that he's done. I went in and he said that he could not get the tires to balance.. Said need 16oz on one side. Also said that the tire has to much wear and are hard to balance cause of size. Should I go to another place and have them give it a shot or just tell them to check alignment?

 

Sway bar connectors or ball joints went bad on mine and caused this problem. Changed out bushings and ball joints plus added a set of Rancho shocks on the front and problem solved.

 

I had this problem on a Jeep Cherokee. Replaced front bearings, steering box, track bar, anything that had any play at all. Installed new double steering stabilizer, had tires balanced, still did it. Shop suggested a balance where they use a force roller or something, it puts pressure on the tire as it is balanced and checks for roundness, they dismount tire and match tires and rims. Problem solved, went away for a couple years, until tire wear caused it to start again.