Re: Update on Jeep TJ Wrangler shimmy
Well, I'm back at the keyboard and thought I would bring things up to date.<br /><br />The mechanic tried some adjustment with the caster, and it seemed to be somewhate better, but still did it once on a test drive.<br /><br />I put new tires on the front, just to cover that base. I then put a 300 mile highway trip on it to test it out.<br /><br />I did not get the dreaded wobble--and again I stress this is not a shimmy, but a real danger of loosing control of the vehicle, sort of like a blow out on a front tire would be. The Jeep, however did not handle well, and wandered a lot from the "expiremental" alignment setting.<br /><br />I took it back again to the shop this morning and had them bring it back to specs for handling reasons, and it again feels like the wobble will occur at any time. <br /><br />I'm going to put another hundred miles on it this afternoon, but don't expect much. <br /><br />I have not completely decided, but I am leaning toward getting rid of this thing. I cannot send my wife out in it, as it is, at this point an unpredictable death-trap. By the way, this is my fourth Jeep, and we've put almost 700k miles on them.<br /><br />Here is what one website says about this problem:<br /><br />"As you have already found out, Death Wobble, the horrible front end vibration that starts when one wheel (usually the right) hits a bump around 40~50mph, is the worst possible downside to having a coil-sprung vehicle with a track bar setup such as the WJ, XJ, ZJ, and TJ use. Death Wobble is also extremely difficult to try to diagnose, because it is actually caused by slop in the entire steering system as a whole, not by one component. To diagnose correctly, one needs to look for "play" everywhere there is something that could have "play" in it. It's time consuming, and downright dangerous while you are in "test phase", trying to exorcise this demon from your Jeep."<br /><br />I'll keep you all posted, and thanks for your ideas.<br /><br />Jinx
