suicide shimmy

R) or better known as the death wobble, well i decide to deal with this problem, and as was suggested here the tie rod ends went bye-bye. Now the fun part apperently i have learned 1 thing in the three months i have had this plesed curse in my garage, nothing is as it seems. Thanks for listening to me wine for a minute now on to the problem.

It appear the PO during the upgrade to Saginaw decided to mount the tie rods to stock 27 axle on from the top not the bottom why i have yet to figure out, the PO brazed the holes shut and redrilled tapper holes from the top, they also took the passenger side tie rod (the 1 with extra hole for drag link) bent it brazed the hole shut and again drilled a new tapper hole, no big deal accept try to find that part again. After letting Jon at Border Parts look at it he tells me there is a different style sterring knuckle that has 2 holes in it, I guess my question is why someone would do this and has anyone every heard of this before, i will get picks but wife has the camera. to all that help me figure this one out. Thanks

 

probably the drag link was hitting the leaf spring. have that problem on my 55 cj5.
i'm considering bending/reinforcing the drag link for clearance until i find a better solution.

 

Your PO did you a favor; on a lifted CJ, flipping the TREs to the top of the knuckles will put them more parallel with the drag link. Brazing and redrilling the hole is the proper way to do it. The double hole knuckle I believe was stock on the Jeepster D27; it will allow you to run an Advanced Adapters 1-piece knuckle-to-knuckle tie rod with your Saginaw steering box, a vast improvement over the Ross box and two-piece tie rod.

As far as DW goes, check your toe in/out first, then king pin bearings, steering box sector shaft, and bushings in the spring eyes.

 

It may be that your castor degree is off. Maybe the axle has been turned to improve pinion angle.. or maybe its from the diffrent type of knuckle that was swapped on your axle ?

 

The PO probably did this for reasons already mentioned. More clearance in regard to the leaf spring and to reduce the angle on the drag link. The reason he brazed, re-drilled and tapped the passenger side tie rod end was to place the drag link ball joint to the front once he put the tie rod ends on the top of the knuckles. And I think they already have a bend to them, at least mine does. Jon might be able to get one of the double hole knuckles.

I agree with jayhawkclint about checking the kingpin bearings etc. You might want to check that out before you try to find a double hole knuckle or make a new re-drilled tapped tie rod end...

 

I have replaced all of the tie rod ends accept for the double with the custom bend. I now relize that there is play at the steering box also, so i guess a new saginaw box is up next how much should they cost.

I do have a double tie rod end but the bend in the one on my jeep is exactly oppisite of the one i got from border parts.

I also have shims in my front axle i am starting to understand but do not like it, i believe alot of my problems are cooming from the sm420 with advanced adapter. As metioned above and border parts that my caster was wrong but its all new to me still. 1 problem found, 20 more uncovered

 

The Saginaw box can be adjusted if it's out of the Jeep and you follow the directions. Be sure to adjust the end play before you adjust the gear mesh.

If the PO tilted the axle with shims, then, as they say "well, there's your problem!" The caster angle has to be right - the only way you can tilt the axle to adjust the pinion angle on the front axle is by removing the knuckles and rewelding them to the axle tubes. Proper caster angle is essential!

 

Or get a high-angle driveshaft. Or drop the transmission a bit. You can tolerate a higher angle on the front axle because it's not in use all the time, and it's usually used at lower speeds.

There's a '75 manual online here http://www.toeksplace.com/jeep/ which will cover the steering boxes. My '77 manual is better becasue it covers adjustment aside from disassembly.

 

You might ask the folks at Tom Wood's http://www.4xshaft.com/index.html for advice on your driveshaft. I would measure the drop, distance between the yokes and angles of the pinion and TC before calling. The stock pinion angle should be pretty close to level.

 

Shims. You say that you have degree shims but this is with a stock d27 axle? I think the degree shims are most often used to correct for caster when swapping to the d30 axle. I suppose it could be due to extra long spring shackles. I think it would be worth your time to measure the caster and find out.

Tie Rod Flip. Aside from making it more parallel with the drag link it gives you more clearance to the leaf springs and more clearance off road. I think it's a good thing.

Death Wobble. During my most recent go around with this I found the best thing to do was to take off the front bumper and winch, then grab the ends of the frame rails and rock the Jeep back and forth while at the same time looking at all the front end components. Even better to have two people - one to rock and one to look. With two people you may not need to remove the bumper and other stuff in the way. For me it turned out to be too much wear on the degree shims and the problem was solved (temporarily) by tightening the u-bolts (springs to axle).

Good luck and let us know.

 

Pics of the setup would help immensely. How much lift is there? If there is none I cannot imagine you needing to adjust the castor, in this case get rid of the degree shims and your pinion angle will be back to stock and so would your castor.

I am running a little over 2" of lift with no adjustments to castor (other then the little bit that my small shackle lift gives) As stated before all the bushings, king pins, bearings and linkages need to be in good shape as well.

 

Yes, that was my understanding of the OP's description. The shims point the pinion up toward the TC, which makes the caster angle zero to negative. Most cars need a few degrees of positive caster to keep the steering tracking straight ahead and stable.

 

My death wobble was due to the whole steering box mount had cracked from the frame (and was not easily seen), the two person shake and look worked, rewelded and added gussets, end of problem!

Dale

 

Well i took the front tires down had them rebalanced, adjusted toe in to about a 1/16, and no more death wobble, also replaced most of the tie rod ends except for the custom bend, now i try to start my 2000 diesel and nothing have juice brand new bataries, now i wait for tripe AAA to tow to the dealer and i am supposed to go to the dessert this afternoon does it every feel like you can't win