I have an 04 4 door long box cummins with a leveling kit and a set of 35' Pro Comp Extera's. Im sure that the tires are mostly to blame but, when i hit a good bump on the high way a about 70mph i get seriously bad death wobble, or uncontrolable front end shimmy. Just wondering if any one else out there has had any problems in this department.
Hmm, did you just do this leveling kit and 35's? THe tires shouldn't cause that at all. THe only thing I can really think of is somehow it screwed up your alignment really bad. The 3 things I would look at carefully that can cause something like that is.. 1. Front end alignment, I'd bet on that before anything else. 2. bad ball joints (maybe yours were getting worn and the big tires envoked symptoms with their added weight and rotating mass?) 3. Wheel bearings.
When i purchased the truck all the accesories where on it already and the three things listed above where checked a week ago. My father-in-law has a 97 cummins with no lift and stock size tires and he occasionally experncies the same problem. I did some reserch on the matter and found that 94-99 trucks will do this because of improper panhard bar alignment. Large mud tires (Like i have) will often add to the problem because as they wear they become out of ballance, wich is could be a good starting point for death wobble. It also dose not help that the tires that i have are directional, so it limits how i can rotate them. I just spent a $100 yesterday at the local tire store to have everything dimounted rotated and rebalanced. I was just wondering if the new generation truck has carried over the same trait as last generations has!
Search on TDR about it. It's a very very common problem on 3rd gens. When you do the leveling kit you screw up the castor. KORE has just come out with custom control arms so you can adjust it back to stock and this seems to solve everyons problem but it's expensive, I'm just going to make my own.
Thanks for the heads up waytogo , i assumed it was a problem in the suspension some where. Coil over suspension is a little more delicate when it's lifted.
With a level kit? Gotta be 2 inches right? I couldn't imagine the castor changing enough to cause DW. Swap the front tires with the rears and have the alignment checked. How many miles are on the truck? Don't forget the dreaded track bar.
Sure, a level kit adds length to the coils basically, which will through the caster off, give it more positive caster, which is exactly the cause of wobble. Drive fast in reverse and you'll see what positive caster does - that's why it's hard to keep it going straight in reverse when going fast. Leaf sprung Jeeps with stock front shackle position and extended spring shackles experience the same weird steering due to the caster change. Marc
Sorry dude but 2" is only gonna change 1deg max if that. As the suspension cycles the castor has been designed to have a minimum effect over handling. The DW condition with the shackles in the front get worse as the spring bushings wear and brake down. BTW land speed vehicles have more castor than the average to deal with quick steering at high speeds so watch the Dodge suspension cycle down and you'll see the longer lower link push the bottom of the axle foward to compinsate negative castor which is also a known cause of DW.
Please forgive my attempt at giving input, I did not read the notice that only one person per thread is allowed to give an answer or possible solution to questions. However, if cycling the suspension down induces negative caster, wouldn't it stand to reason that cycling it up, say 2 inches, would induce more positive caster? Hmmm, nah, couldn't be. Clearly, you are right and my input was without merit. I'll stay off the Dodge forums from now on. Thanks for setting me straight.
Hey I'm not trying to step on any toes or create enemys here so don't get all hurt cause that was not my intent. I was talking about the suspention moving downward which is what a 2" lift causes. I hope you were not refering to me with the statement of "I did not read the notice that only one person per thread is allowed to give an answer or possible solution to a question" because I'm only a fish in a sea of knowledge and all input to a question only makes us smarter.waytogo
