Thanks for the replies. ANswers to some questions:

1. My wheels are balanced with the lead weight that goes on the rim lip, no0t sticky weights.
***I think it is the wheel balance because I rotated the tires (back to front) and it made things WORSE.

2. Things were loose up front, but I have a bad rear wheel hop over bumps. I was thinking it may be the shocks, but it really feels like the tires are all out of whack. I even notice a slight out of balance when just driving smooth.

3. Changed the steering stabilizer a year ago to a rancho. No troubles with the stock, I just did an upgrade when I purchased 4 RS5000 shocks. The stabilizer still was working properly when taken off to do the tie rods.

About the wheel bearings, Is this a clicking while driving? or a click when you are stopping. I hear a single click from time to time when starting from a dead stop, but i think that is just my calipers sticking.

 

I had a set of tires on a truck once that seemed to have corners. They looked good...drove like crap. Is there someone you can swap wheels and tires with for a hour or so to see? That's how I confirmed my problem.

 

When I had some aftermarket Chrome rims (that had a obnoxious back-spacing) I had death wobble but only when I touched the breaks!

Once I bought a second hand set of 3rd gen wheels the problem went away (same 35" big at tires)

I still have a studder when coming to a stop but I think my front rotors might be warped or my rear abs is acting funny(I also changed tire size back to a 33" mud grappler)

Good luck with the death wobble, have you tried to buy one of those steering gear box stabilizers?

 

GD, no. But I am going to sears for a balancing tomorrow.

99, I had the exact same problem with braking on my 1996 (wobble when braking), and it ended up being ball joints. They were VERY loose. I would have them checked out.

 

Mine is a 1998 and had the same problem our trucks are old and after a period of time the suspension does settle and the geometry changes a bit take your truck back to the alignment shop and have them max out the caster adjustment it worked for me

 

You were referring to from the factory, apparently. I prefaced with afaik (as far as I know) b/c all the Wranglers I've been around have radius arms as they ditched the factory 4 link. I thought you were referring to radius as 4-link. The XJ is not a Wrangler.

Good clarification on both parts.

 

Never said it was. But the 4 link that ended up under TJ's still originated in the 1984 XJ.

 

I have a 1994 1500 4x4 and I only get the Death Wobble when the front shocks are bad. I had them replaced and the wobble was still there, I finally figured out the lower mounting bolt on the passenger front shock didn't actually hold the shock from moving in the mount! Thinking they installed the wrong shocks they ordered new ones to the same effect. tried shims which fixed it but fell out within a few thousand miles. Final fix was a 3' breaker bar and tighten until the mount deformed and pinched the shock. figured this out around 175K miles and it only comes back after a shock change and not getting the lower PS mount tight enough, currently have 289K miles.
BTW, we only figgured this out by having someone lightly bounce the front of the truck and had my finger touching across the shock and the mount to feel a very small bit of play, which we discounted at first as too small to cause such steering mayhem and emotional distress, but that was it.
Hope this helps somebody.

 

I noticed that the ranchos had some space between the shock mounts and the brackets, but thee was a metal shim in there to take up the space. However, i think it is 1/8 inch of play in the passenger ball joint that is the problem. THat messes up the alignment and could just have exponential negative effects on the whole steering system.

 

UPDATE:

CHanging the front steering dampener fixed the shaking. I had a rancho "upgrade" on there and when I took it off, it had NOTICEABLY less rigidity than the OEM part I put back on.

Actually the OEM part took all my strength to attempt to move and the rancho moved with less effort.

SO, anyone who thinks that the steering dampener is not the culprit, it was in my case...after I replaced the whole front end.

NOTE: I never had the DW with my 1996, even when my ball joints were SHOT. But that truck had a HUGE steering dampener. Huge piston.