1989 Jeep Cherokee Death Wobble!?

DW in lay mans terms is the inability of the front suspension to counteract the normal oscillations of the tires. The wobble that you have now could be pretty much anything on the front suspension or steering. The first thing I would do is a dry steering test. With the Jeep off, have a buddy rock the steering wheel back and forth and look at all the suspension and steering components. Fix or replace anything that moves in a manner in which it shouldn't I would pay particular attention to where the track bar mounts to the front axle. DW or a loose bolt there tends to wallow out the bolt hole allowing a slight bit of movement propagating as a wobble. The next step would be to check your ball joints. Now that you already have the front suspension off the ground, rotate your tires from the front axle to the back axle. If it is a bent wheel the wobble will now show on the rear suspension and you have your answer. If you still have a wobble at that point, you have a control arm problem. More than likely, you still have at the very least, stock upper control arms. Worn bushings in those control arms will cause the wobble.

Jeep Wobble

Upper and lower control arm bushings.

Upper and lower ball joints.

You've done the easy stuff ...track bar and shimmy dampener and alignment.

The bushings and ball joints are probably shot and not keeping the front end properly aligned.

That's what I would check.

Note on alignment. If the shop guy isn't familiar with four wheel drive vehicles or XJ's in particular ...he may have tried to adjust the caster and in the process wacked out the pinion angle on the front axle/drive shaft juncture. The pinion angle, which should be *zero*, takes precedence over caster.

You don't say, but I am assuming this XJ has *not* been lifted in any way ...right?

Jerb, all are good answers and you should check them all on your Jeep, BUT yes you most definatly need the sway bar when driving on the road, And you said 45 MPH, I would really look into the tire balance and rim bend problem that was mentioned, at 45 that is when inbalance problems show up on tires. And you just may notice a pulling problem when you are driving on a flat surfaced road, with no road crown, rule of thumb, 40 mph at 40 yards and the jeep drifts either way more than 3 feet, you do have a problem

Hope this helps and good luck

Since you just replaced the track bar, my next thing to look at is the bushings in your front control arms. If those are the stock arms, it is a good bet that they reached the end of their life. Your track bar and control arms are the two biggest causes of DW. Instead of replacing the bushings, you will be better off buying better, stronger control arms. Rustys make a pretty good set. I like them for some things but have had issues(customer service) with them lately. At this point I will not buy anything from them again. Their prices are pretty good. Beware of Rustys though. Make absolutely sure you are getting the parts that work with your jeep. You cannot get a refund from them. Only store credit. Their sales reps who answer the phone dont know as much as they think they do.

I have a TJ that developed DW about 6 months after I bought it. I had the whole front end checked out and there were no problems, but both front tires were pretty well worn. Replaced both front tires then had the front end aligned again and no more DW. I'm running BFG 31X10.50-15 on it.

If you are feeling this through your steering wheel then you have a bent wheel.Have them spin balanced to locate the bad one. Here are some web sites about the "Death Wobble".

tires? if one of the belts gone in the tire will give you a wobble or is it a vibration then check the u-joints too remember that's why jeep lovers call it a jeep think its always something with them