THE DEATH WOBBLE THREAD

jonesyba420 wrote:

Shep wrote: Has anyone tried these?
www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Usful-S...0089_1052543182.html

i like the concept, saves shimming them but dont know how effective it would be. im assuming the price is for 2 and we need 4 unless you can just run one on the top of each side, not sure if that would work tho tbh.

I tried to get this point answered a while back in relation to normal shimming.

So, is it OK to adjust preload at one kingpin only? The answer would seem to be yes as far as the kingpins are concerned, but what about the drive shaft/hub bearings?
Can they cope if the hub centre is effectively moved up or down, albeit by a couple of thou?

Hi guys, just an update - I had a wobble which was definitely death wobble but intermittent for some reason. Anyhow I took my Jim in to check the wheel balancing and they were imbalanced so got that sorted and hey presto no wobble!

Concrete on a plate, concrete on a plate... That's right, unlike jelly it doesn't wobble.

My new steel wheels and tyres were delivered this afternoon, so I went straight out and replaced my alloys.
I decided to go for steels with General Grabber ATs 205/75/15, which came already ballanced. They weren't cheap but this is the only thing I've done to my Jimny since buying it last October. When I saw them I was seriously worried they weren't going to fit under my unlifted arches as they looked much bigger than the 205/70/15 I had on. Anyway I needn't have worried there was plenty of space and no rubbing at full lock.
But what's more I just took them for a spin and NO WOBBLE. I could hardly believe it, in fact about an hour later I took it out again and not the slightest shake. It feels so much better. Hooray...

These are they.

cohpriHi folks.

This is my first post on bigjimny after a couple of years of visiting. I want to say a big THANK YOU to the many contributors in the technical forum who have helped me enormously over the last two years and, of course, to Mr. Lines for making all this possible.

My first Jimny is a green year 2000 SOHC belt-driven model. Put General Grabbers on it and its been great - not perfect in the wobble department but the steel wheels are old and may have been kirbed a few times by the old lady who had the car before me.

Then, over a year ago, I had this crazy idea that I wanted to get a Shetland style boat with outboard and tow it behind the Jimny. After some internet research (bigjimny) I quickly realised I'd have to upgrade my Jimny due to the towing limits/ABS issue (400kg versus1,300kg).

Well, then I made a big mistake by purchasing a 2007 VVT Jimny from a notorious franchise dealer here in Scotland called Arnold The Shark. I noticed the steering wobble on the way home, around 45mph. While not being impressed I thought "it's probably just wheel balancing". I got the wheels balanced (twice). I swopped the wheels over from green (good) Jimny to black (bad) Jimny - no use. Swopped the wheels back and took it back to Arnold The Shark just before their three month "warranty" was due to expire. It also has the burning oil smell from underneath (propshaft sealing cap oil on cat problem - thank you SO much bigjimny).

Needless to say, The Shark said they'd fixed it and returned the car to me just before the "warranty" expired. I don't think they did a thing to the motor - everything was just the same (steering wobble/oil smell).

Then I bought kingpin and wheel bearing and special tool from the bigjimny shop, determined to sort it myself. Before we got fully into the job (we'd fully removed the caliper/mounting and disk) my mate was adamant that the wheel bearing was fine and we put it all back together (cleaned and copper greased). Well lo and behold the 45mph steering wobble was gone. Amazing - that's all we did. That was a couple of months ago and no wobble since. What a result!

So that sounds like a happy ending, huh? Well the next day I took green Jimny for a spin and did she not have a wobble at 45mph? I swear to god it's true. It's like we'd excorcised the evil spirit from the black Jimny over to the green one! Maybe the Death Wobble spirit sensed the nearby presence of the Special Tool from Bigjimny and decided to switch host to Green Jimny - I don't know, I just decided to file it under the "funny sh*t happens in life sometimes" section and wait and see how the situation developed.

The situation has certainly developed. I thought the last wobble was bad and possibly dangerous, but at least you could drive faster or slower to get rid of it but this week I got SEVERE Green Jimny Death Wobble at 45mph and slowing down to 30mph didn't help. I must admit I thought people maybe over-hyped this "Death Wobble" thing but at 30mph the whole vehicle was shaking - side to side - the glovebox was rattling like anything, side-to-side! I'd never seen that before... like a flaming potergeist in the car! I was genuinely scared for my life. "Slow down or stop" - never had to before but I have now. May well just be the kingpin bearings and it's going to the garage on Tuesday and I've got the parts already so no sweat. May even decide to do the job myself instead, now I've got the black jimny propshaft oil leak problem fully appraised thanks to cgauer from Brazil on propshaft resin repair and also other bigjimny contributors who have explained about getting the ^$%$^£^ gearbox oil changed on a VVT.

Hi guys,

like a lot of you I've been plagued by the old death wobble, the first time i had it i just changed the king pin bearing and it was o k for about 12 months, started again so skimmed them up, o k for a few weeks then started, tried a few more shims o k for a few more weeks, so changed the king pin bearing and shimmed it but still a little wobble which just got worse,

I,ve ended up changing the king pins, king pin bearing, 4 ball joints, tracking, balancing the wheels, wheel bearings, changed the hubs so more new bearings, still no good, changed axle casing, no good,

The adjustable panard rod powerflex bushes looked good and i never suspected anything as
i wasn't getting a lot of play when i was shaking thing about, but when i got someone else to shake the guts
out of it i found the eye had elongated, stuck the old panard rod on to try and not a wobble,

Sorted at long last...

i tried everything, from caster correction bushing to caster correction radius arms... my final solution was changing the position of the diffs, had to do some cutting and welding but it's the best solution... just give it the factory caster angles