Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Death Wobble

When did 'shimmy' get changed to 'death wobble'? By any name, though, when it happens you'll wish it didn't. Years ago I had a '55 Chevy pickup that had a bad shimmy problem. It had lots of other problems, too. I sold it 'as is'.
The cause is always the same thing - worn steering parts. Between the steering box, tie rods, ball joints, etc., there are a lot of joints to wear out and it's all high stress. Lately it seems that Dodge and Ford are getting all the bad press but the others have their share of it, too.

I've put polyurethane track rod bushings on high mile rigs... '89 F350, an Excursion, and a '99 F350. Combined with new rod ends and drag links and ball joints and kingpins as applicable and reman steering box, they drive like new for a long time. New front springs on the excursion and the '99 helped also as they'd have new bushings.

Any rig that has an axle located with rubber bushings is subject to issues like these. I've not looked into the newer rigs with solid axles and coil spings, but am guessing the issues get more complicated as the bushings have to both pivot and twist, and polyurethane won't squish to allow a twist.

I had a 1979 chevy half ton that would do it. I put a heavy duty stabilizer shock on it and that fixed it.

Same truck as mine but mine made it to 139k last summer. No prior notice and when leaving camp and got up to about 55 all hell broke loose, I was about sideways before I could get it somewhat under control. Eased it to a friends garage and he ended up replacing everything it in the frontend, no problem since. He told me it had a lot to do with me having a plow which is almost 1000 pounds and is on the truck from Dec-March.

When my '05 TJ would do it it was no mere "shimmy". The son of a bitch would bounce from front tire to front tire so violently that it would have flung my ass out the door and onto the pavement if I hadn't been belted in. That's no lie and no exaggeration. It's a positive feedback in the factory inverted-Y steering geometry which usually only occurs when one of the rod ends or control arm ends is not sufficiently tight. I don't mean "not up to factory specs." What was required with that jeep was far far far beyond factory specs but it did resolve the issue. Sometimes a front steering stabilizer will fix it but most often not. Funny thing was my '98 which had much larger tires never did any death wobble and didn't even have a front steering stabilizer.

Tom

ah yes dodge trucks. biggest POS vehicle i ever owned was an 05 1500. about the only thing it didn't have was the death wobble. its favorite trick was to just shut off when letting off the gas like going into a turn. makes you appreciate power steering and brakes. it was completely rotted out by 2011. rear end shot, interior coming apart, gas tank leaking, ball joints gone. when i traded that worthless POS in it had less than 90k miles on it. built ram tough.

Bought my Wrangler new in 2008. It has developed the DW twice over the years. The steering damper was the issue both times. The first time was on I-65 in Birmingham rush hour traffic. It was a life altering experience. Second time was driving home after hunting. I thought that one was caused by mud buildup on the front tires, but found out differently.

Thinking that using the Cummins saved Dodge/Ram trucks. And they tried to screw that up by barely having a platform worthy of the extra weight & torque.

Without the Cummins, I'm not sure Dodge trucks would have survived.

Many owners drive those things around unaware that their front end components are badly & prematurely worn due to the gradual decent & their getting used to it daily. Someone else might drive the truck & ask; what the hell is wrong with this thing? Seen it happen more than once.

I have driven roughly 632k miles combined on 3 live axle Dodge/Ram trucks, one a 1500, the other 2 2500 Cummins powered. I have yet to experience any kind of "death wobble". Current truck is a 2014 with 190k. The only suspension maintenance I've done to it is the installation of King Racing shocks at 105k and a set of front wheel hubs at 180k. Ball joints, tie rods, steering stabiliser, track rod are all original. My 2003 2500 needed ball joints at 248k miles.

Pretty sure a lot of the death wobble complaints are amplified by oversize, incorrect offset wheels, poor wheel balance and incorrect alignment.

I'd think a 24 year old truck is due for a complete front end overhaul. Surprised it didn't DW a long time ago.