Vibrating front wheels

[bradleyfutter]

Hi all, so i am very very green to mod'ing 4WD's. About 3 weeks ago i put a supposed 50mm lift kit on my other wise stock standard TJ Wrangler sport. Now it was fitted by a reputable 4WD place in sydney. It was meant to come with all the new bits and pieces to make it a complete kit.

So firstly, the shop asked me a few questions about my car in its current state (nothing fitted at all, not even a standard bull bar), and my future plans, as a result they put 40-80kg springs in the front and 100kg springs in the back, and what resulted in about a 3-3.5" lift. After driving for a couple days it was obvious there was something critically wrong with the setup. Under extended periods of breaking or when hitting bumps, the car ended up in heart stopping buthole puckering shakes !!!

so after about 3 or 4 trips back and forth from the shop, i now have the 0-40kg springs in the front. but alas, it still shakes, no where near as dramatic tho, but none the less it still shakes and im still not happy !!

When i was test driving TJs before i bought mine, i drove a few with lift kits and did not notice what mine is doing now, so i figure, this cant be normal. should i be swapping out the rear springs to?

Anyone out there experience similar problems? or know ways to fix !! or know anyone you can give a second opinion on the install to see if i have been jibbed ??

just FYI its old man emu sport shock and spring setup with all the bump stops, gear box spacers and panhard ext.

Please tell me this can be fixed and that i havent just wasted 1500 and permenately wrecked my TJ !!

[Steve F]

Do a google search on 'Death Wobble' as this is what you're getting. If the bushes etc are in good condition the most likely cause is the caster angle, basically the caster is now less than it was and the front end is getting a shimmy much like a shopping trolley (they have 0% caster). To fix it you will need to push the lower control arms forward. There are shims on the body end of the lower control arm mounts and room for some adjustment, shim the control arms a little more than they are now to get some caster back and hopefully the wobbles will go. Oh, and it gets worse the higher you get because the caster is reduced the higher you go, so when they put lower springs in the DW's weren't so bad.

Hope that helps

Cheers
Steve

[Wolfe]

Now it was fitted by a reputable 4WD place in sydney.

Please tell me this can be fixed and that i havent just wasted 1500 and permenately wrecked my TJ !!

Which shop?

There's nothing quite like the "Death wobbles" for evacuating ones bowels. Don't sweat it, it happens all the time, just do plenty of research on line and work through the problems till you find the solution. Unfortunately there could be any number of contributing factors but usually it comes from play in ball joints or tie rod ends. If you get underneath your rig and get someone to move the steering wheel back and forth, you may spot where the play is. Good luck, be patient and welcome to modifying your jeep.

[glend]

I would suggest having the guys at ProAxle look at it. They have all the equipment, shims, etc to correct the angles. They have a shop at Enfield (behind the bus depot) and a couple of others around town. The place looks like crap but they know what they are doing.

[bradleyfutter]

I dont know if im going to get into trouble naming the shop or not... they are a great bunch, really helpful guys, and they are a BIG respected brand as far as im aware.

but im not particularly happy with the end result. I dont expect my car to be dangerous to drive after ive spent so much money for someone who is qualified to the job properly.

Also im not so keen on playing with the mechanics of my car, thats why ive paid top dollar for a well known shop to do it !!

[Steve F]

I doubt they would have done a wheel alignment, which is what will pick up the caster problem, tell then that you think this may be the issue (I'm assuming they've checked the ball joints etc) and then they may be able to fix it. Like I said it's just a few shims at the frame end of the lower control arms.

Cheers
Steve

[Hunno]

I don't know anything about TJ's but if you live in Sydney you should come to the meeting to night I sure a few of the guys would be interested to have a look and give you a better idea of what could be wrong.

December meeting (7:30pm Wednesday 2nd December) will be held at TJM Megastores premises 1/163 Prospect Hwy Seven Hills

[Dave]

Not that my vehicle is a TJ, but when TJM put my lift in I asked about offset castor bushes. They said that they may be needed in a lift of more than 2 inches when the castor is altered too much - resulting in symptoms like you describe. As Steve F said, a wheel alignment (a MUST after suspension work) would have picked that up.

Dave

[sbadman]

Not that my vehicle is a TJ, but when TJM put my lift in I asked about offset castor bushes. They said that they may be needed in a lift of more than 2 inches when the castor is altered too much - resulting in symptoms like you describe. As Steve F said, a wheel alignment (a MUST after suspension work) would have picked that up.

Dave

I would have thought that the caster an IFS vehicle like the KJ's wouldn't be affected by a suspension lift, due to the geometry of the arms. Camber would be a different story though.

The bigger lifts on the SFA vehicles often come with aftermarket control arms to allow caster to stay within specs, as you can only adjust so far with shims!

[CraigB]

Howdy mate,
Mine is a JK and had same drama after lift - same kit you got too. Alignment sorted it, but note what Steve says above, also, do you still have the same stock swaybar linkages from before the lift? The OME kit is a nominal 2", but is actually almost double that. I bought extended swaybar disconnect linkages and got another alignment. So, for now about 95% good, but need a few smallish tweaks for the elusive 100% score. Haha, like Wolfie says: welcome to the wonderful world of Jeep mods - tempremental game it is, enjoy...
...it never, ever ends...
CRB