Where do you get your alignments done?

[jast513]

I just put on a RE 3.5in, (about a month and a half ago) and I am starting to get the death wobble bad. So I was going to get a trac bar and then an alignment, anyone have a good reliable place to get an alignment done?

I live in Gilbert so something close would be good! Thanks!

[jeff krause]

Driveway.....

[YGOHOME]

I just put on a RE 3.5in, (about a month and a half ago) and I am starting to get the death wobble bad. So I was going to get a trac bar and then an alignment, anyone have a good reliable place to get an alignment done?

I live in Gilbert so something close would be good! Thanks!

I'm not familiar with the Gilbert area but Joe at Absolute Offroad does the best alignments in my opinion. He's at indian school and I-17 if your jeep can make it that far :)

[Fire Ball]

The franchise places suck mostly. I had one tell me couldn't adjust the lower CA's on a TJ. Then he said they could be adjusted but there was no more adjustment available, they did all they could. I got it home and found the big gobs of grease and oil still on the nuts, they never even tried to adjust it :(

[lancetkenyon]

I'm not familiar with the Gilbert area but Joe at Absolute Offroad does the best alignments in my opinion. He's at indian school and I-17 if your jeep can make it that far :)

I usually do mine in my garage, but Joe does a great job on ANY automotive repair.

[ijestares]

[QUOTE=jast513;204238]I just put on a RE 3.5in, (about a month and a half ago) and I am starting to get the death wobble bad. So I was going to get a trac bar and then an alignment, anyone have a good reliable place to get an alignment done?

I live in Gilbert so something close would be good! Thanks!

I agree with Jeff! Save your money and do it yourself. All they are going to do is a toe in anyway and you can do that with a:

• 13mm, 15mm (deep) Socket & Wrench's
• Tape measure
• Vice Grips or Pipe Wrench
• Floor Jack (optional)*
• Jack Stands (optional)*
• Wheel Chocks
• Someone to help you measure things

1. Park on level ground and then with the help of a friend, measure the width between the front of your front tires and then compare that to the back of your front tires. It is important to use the exact same measuring point front and back (such as the mold seam in the middle of your tires) in order to get an accurate reading.

2. Using a 13mm socket and wrench, loosen sleeves on both ends of the tie-rod.

3. Grab the tie-rod with a pair of vice-grips or pipe wrench and rotate it a little bit at a time taking measurements along the way. Continue this process until the width in the front is about 1/16" (but no more than 1/8") closer together than the back.

4. Once your toe-in has been set, re-tighten the tie-rod sleeves and then move on to re-centering your steering wheel by manipulating the drag-link.

Enjoy!

[ijestares]

Also check Stu's website I think he also has/had a write up on this.

[Fire Ball]

It also helps to jack the vehicle up so jack stands are under suspension parts. (weight has to be on the wheels.)

Then spin the tire and hold a marker against the tire and draw a line all the way around the tire. Do this to both tirwes.

Now you have an acurate place to measure from rather than just using lugs which can vary in distance. Mark a spot on the front of both tires alnong the line you just drew and measure the distance between them. Rotate the tire so the marks are now on the rear side and measure again. The difference between the 2 is what you are looking for.

[KennethS]

So the caster and camber isn't critical?

[Allen]

Driveway.....

x2! I used the writeup on Stu's website and >>DONE<<

[YGOHOME]

So the caster and camber isn't critical?

camber is not adjustable on solid axles. but the caster is definitely important.

toe in is something you can do at home if you know how... caster maybe too but its not easy. Especially trying to reattch the lower arms after adjusting their length and the front axle doesn't want to cooperate and twist away from the arms. Thats why I'd go to Absolute to do it for me.

[KennethS]

Thanks for the info. I'm experiencing the "death wobble" too, and I'm trying to figure out what's causing it and how to eliminate it. This past Christmas I replaced the front hub bearing assemblies, upper and lower ball joints, drive shaft u-joints, and front axle shaft u-joints, then after that I had the wheels rebalanced. The right lower control arm had been bashed by a rock at some point in the past and the end of the U-channel was bent out to the point the bushing was barely hanging on, so I replaced that with a used stock LCA. I still get the DW at 52-55 MPH. It feels like the wheels start floating, but I've checked the steering parts and haven't found anything that is obviously loose. I could be missing something, though, as it's difficult to grab the wheel and torque it back and forth while looking at the steering parts at the same time.

I'm open to all suggestions and recommendations.

[YGOHOME]

when it comes to diagnosing death wobble I'm going to recommend Joe again.

It could be a number of things and it can get frustrating spending alot of money only to find out the problem still exists.

If you having anything close to 3" of lift and are on the stock front arms then it is probably caster. But could be a front track bar axle bushing too.

[ijestares]

Thanks for the info. I'm experiencing the "death wobble" too, and I'm trying to figure out what's causing it and how to eliminate it. This past Christmas I replaced the front hub bearing assemblies, upper and lower ball joints, drive shaft u-joints, and front axle shaft u-joints, then after that I had the wheels rebalanced. The right lower control arm had been bashed by a rock at some point in the past and the end of the U-channel was bent out to the point the bushing was barely hanging on, so I replaced that with a used stock LCA. I still get the DW at 52-55 MPH. It feels like the wheels start floating, but I've checked the steering parts and haven't found anything that is obviously loose. I could be missing something, though, as it's difficult to grab the wheel and torque it back and forth while looking at the steering parts at the same time.

I'm open to all suggestions and recommendations.


5 major causes.
The first of which is that your alignment is off. Because of the scissor type of steering on TJs, when you lift a TJ, your jeep gets toed-in anywhere from 2-3 inches more than factory. Your Jeep should only be towed in about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch. Have your jeep aligned if you have lifted it over 2 inches with out a recent alignment.

Next possible cause of the shimmy comes from the balance of the tires. If your front tires weights have been knocked off by an extreme rock crawling incident, you may wish to have them rebalanced. Also as these big mud tires wear down, they loose a lot of there weight, and this can also cause them to come out of balance. For the most part this is the main cause of the shimmy, but not always.

Third cause is the track bar. I managed to blow out the ball joint at the end of the track bar within weeks of installing my lift. This blown-out joint allowed for side to side play in the steering and would only help the shimmy along. Get a track bar with a beefy heim joint that is adjustable in length.

Fourth cause is from excessive castor angles. When you lift a TJ, you need to adjust the lower arms longer, and or the upper arms shorter to put the castor angles back to factory limits. This is a tassk that needs to be precise. You should only have to worry about this if you have a lift of three inches or more.

Fifth and final cause of the shimmy can be warped brake rotors. Jeep did not design rotors to handle massive amounts of heat very well. All you need to do is get them turned and this will only cost about 40 bucks. If you are not sure if your rotors are warped, you can test them if you don't have Anti-lock brakes. All you have to do is drive down a stretch of highway and slam on the brakes. If you feel a pulsating feel through he pedal, then they are warped. However if you have anti-locks, this will be masked.

Enjoy!!!

[HiJinx]

I put my money on his LCAs if they're still stock. Both my XJs had the same issue after lift.

[ijestares]

I put my money on his LCAs if they're still stock. Both my XJs had the same issue after lift.

a very good bet indeed!

[Fire Ball]

When you start monkeying around with the height of the vehicle the geometry changes. Castor being the big one as far as DW. Toe will affect your stability and tire wear. Having toe in too much or not enough and the wheels fight to see which one will track the vehicle and which one gets to drag along. This causes the vehicle to wander.

If your track bar and steering are not parallel you will start to get bump steer since the radius of the arcs are not equal any more. Every tome you hit a bump the steering arms push the wheels and cause them to turn a little without even turning the steering wheel. This can be very annoying on a bumpy road.

Changing tire size and wheel set back change the scrub radius and also affect the handling and steering.

Castor is what brings the wheels back to center. If the Toe is off and the castor is off the wheels will wobble like a grocery cart. The castor for a lifted jeep may not necessarily be identical to that of a stock vehicle so the recommended castor becomes a starting point but trial and error come into play since the other angles, weight and center of gravity are different as well as the harmonic frequency at which the whole assembly wants to vibrate.

If you put all new pieces in and new bushings with a new stabilizer the DW will go away but it is lurking there just waiting for something to wear out enough for the forces that make the axle want to wobble to take over and show up again. Better to take the time to fix the cause not just put a band aid on it. Leaf sprung axles can be a bear to get castor set since no control arms but since no control arms they have less wobble :)

[lancetkenyon]

Just trailer it!

[ijestares]

Just trailer it!

:D :D

[KennethS]

Thanks for all the info. It still has the factory control arms, but until now I didn't think that was an issue since the Old Man Emu lift is only 2" to 2.5". I still need to check out the track bar, but if that's in good shape I guess I'll start looking into adjustable lower control arms.

Just trailer it!
But it's what I use to pull the trailer!