my 73 powerwagon when i get up to 40mph or so will ostly cruise along just fine, but intermittently the entire front end will shake violently like the tires are loose. happens after a rough patch of road and sometimes while braking,

I had this once before and found extremely worn spring eye bushing to be the fix,. not this time, all steering components are new and tight, thoroughly checked springs for cracks or breaks, entire front differential has been swapped out. the front end does wonder a little now with the new d60 frontand I'm sure it is a caster problem and am going after it but the death wobble was hear before the swap. it is killing me
anybody been here?

Steering box or more precise the steering coupler to the box?

You said it was there before a d60 swap? You're not using degree shims or longer shackles are you?

not to sound like an ass.. but you sure its not your tires? I had the same problem when i put my 39.5 Iroks on steel wheels... The 38.5 boggers didnt do it. The iroks were so far outa balance it only did it around 35-40... and once it started i had to almost stop the truck to get it to go away...felt like the tires were falling off...

my springs are dirtectly on the housing, I just tightened up a little slop in the steering coupler and will report back...( I'm anticipating this will help with the wander but not the death wobble.
and a partner just bought identical tires and wheels and we swapped em out with no change.

I had the same problem with my last truck. Everything was fine till I put a new set of 38.5 TSLSX on my truck. Truck went into a "death wobble" every time I hit a certain speed. Turned out they put this powder crap in my tires to make them balance out and when they did it got wet and caked to one side of the tire. Sounds stupid I know but thats what happened. I thought the steering wheel was going to fall off in my hand.

I had a death wobble on my Jeep zj. Turned out to be a worn out trac-bar bushing.

Double check your castor, had the same problem on my YJ and found that I had way too much castor with my shackle reverse. Good luck, death wobble is no joke:eek:

Have you rebuilt your Kingpins? If not I would check them out.

man I appreciate all the help, as suspected the tighter steering coupler didn't help, my wobble started after the last fordyce trip with the old d44. figured no big and I would find and fix it while doing the swap ..but no luck

my castor is around 4 degrees and I thought i might need more ? it doesn't do it til i hit a bump, balancing and swapping tires made no change, i don't have a trac bar system, and my kingpins are newly rebuilt... . i even tried shiming the piss outta them to elliminate a chance they are moving under the weight of the truck and all it did was stiffen up the steering.

sucks :mad3:

thought maybe I had something when I found a little lateral play in my new steering box output shaft, swapped it out with another and dang it still death wobble.

I spent an afternoon lifting the truck from all corners one at a time and inspecting the entire frame and suspension but didn't see anything yet, anyone have these kinda issues with possible bent frames???

If you have Radial's chances are it's a broken belt in the tire.Change the tire's and drive it.

The tires bring the problem to life just like hitting potholes, but they're most likely not the problem. I've had severe death wobble on my Jeep and my 92 CTD. Both of those were toed in, and it wasn't an issue with balanced radial tires. Are you using a steering stabilizer?

I also had a serious death wobble when I swapped to a dana 60, then I put a steering stablizer on and it went away

I had a prob with this once. It was a combo of bad caster angle and the front end out of alignment. Id suggest measuring the distance between the tires at the front and rear of em. Get that as close as possible if not perfect like it should be and try it again. And a steering stabilizer too. But be warned that they will not last forever. I go thru em about one every year or so

when i put the iroks on my truck and i had the wobble, i put new steering links on my truck and it helped a bunch. Id say the steering stabilizer is your best bet if you cant find anything else wrong with it...

ok , I finally got to drive it safely today. long story shorter ... after replacing the rear springs for uneven sag, thoroughly going through the fronts and completely checking the frame repeatedly I swapped the tires and wheels out for a completely different set and the truck felt great. swapped back to prove it ( since I did so many changes at once) and the shake is back.

thanks so much for the help, I can't believe how much work i did to find this

btw. I am pretty sure that the wobble is the king pins but its the tires/wheels causing it.


so i'm going to buy 39.5/17 irocs

anyone want a 36/13/16 for a spare with 50-60% tread on aluminum alcoa look alikes? I have 5 total