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Dana 60 wobble

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buff_dog70

1/2 ton status
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Ridgecrest, CA
Put a Dana 60 under the front of my 82 diesel Jimmy. Went out wheeling, bent the front drag link? (links knuckle to knuckle). The death wobble started and it was bad. Rebuilt kingpins top and bottom, and replaced bent drag link with a new ORD drag link, and new ball joints. Tried to set alignment 1/4 inch to 1/8 inch toe in, by using a tape and going off the brake rotors. Wobble decreased but did not go away. Finally took to have the alignment done at a shop. Seems worse now. I running 35 inch tires, old junky ones, one is not a match and the tread is seperating. Also the ball joints on the tie rod are old, OEM. I also have the steering stabilzer hooked up, but the OEM bolt bushing fits loosely. I don't think the frame is cracked around the steering box. I thought the rebuilding lingpins and fixing the drag link was going to solve the problem. I was going to try fix the steering stablilzer bushing. Maybe balance the tires. Any thoughts or trouble shooting to try would be greatly appreciated.
 
Balance tires will help and try different air psi. Shim up your upper kingpin spring with a few fender washers or change over to springless setup. Adding hydralic assist can help control it.
 
Made some progress

I balanced the tires, one of the tire required over a 1 lb of weight (seperated one). And had the alignment done (at a shop). Still shakeing.

Got a set of 36" Hummer tires and found a set of 16.5 rims had them mounted. Better.

Planning on finding out the castor angle, Off Road Design guy said should be set a 5 degrees (pinion low toward ground).

Going to replace the the center link with a new one. Includes the ball joints. (pinion arm to pitman arm)

Was going to balance the new tire after driving a week or two, since their bais ply.
 
if you had alignment done at a shop you should have a print out with all your actual specs on it.

if you can find someone to bubble balence the 36" bias tires. i have found bias like this better than spin balence.

have you changed your king pin springs and bushings ?

if not you need 2 new springs / 2 new bushings / 2 new gaskets / 2 new spring retainer washers. then reuse the old retainer washers as extra washer on top of new springs for extra pressure on springs.

edit : i see you did king pin reman job.

and radial tires help a lot better than bias on these.
 
Also, (not to criticize) but those ball joints you keep referring too, are actually called tie rod ends. Ball joints are the swivel between the solid end of (some)axles, and the outer knuckle. Our Dana 60's have King pins there. No ball joints on these axles, just tie rod ends or (TRE) on all steering link ends.
You saying it like that was confusing me. No harm, no foul.
 
I had just finished the rebuild the kinpins (hoping to correct the wobble) both top and bottom, new bushings, bearings, springs. I will remove top and add washers.

I will look at the reciept from the shop see if anything is printed on there for the alignment. I was planning on talking to them tommorrow.

I also replaced the tie rod ends and installed new Off Road Designs tie rod that connects the two knuckles.

Going to replace the steering link end components.

Also thinking about adjusting the steering box, and maybe if I can figure it out tighten the up steering column, (I think there is a post in the advanced tech write ups).

The castor angle is set by the top bushing (got the kit from ORD) correct? I heard that there are different bushing to set this castor angle is this true? How do you adjust the castor angle on a kingpin?
 
no adjustment on caster on top of dana 60.

there is a kit for the bottom but not worth it.

and here is a print out of a vehicle i did at work and saved for this type of stuff to show what you get on a print out. but not all print it with bar graphs . i do it sells the job better as reg people dont get the #'s on the reg papers thay are shown.

alignment print.jpg
 
sweetk30 said:
no adjustment on caster on top of dana 60.

there is a kit for the bottom but not worth it.

and here is a print out of a vehicle i did at work and saved for this type of stuff to show what you get on a print out. but not all print it with bar graphs . i do it sells the job better as reg people dont get the #'s on the reg papers thay are shown.
Click to expand...


That printout makes it way easy to understand, I wish everyplace did it this way, instead of having to decipher all the numbers. If you know what numbers your looking for it's easy, but everybody's print out is different.
 
BoondocK5 said:
That printout makes it way easy to understand, I wish everyplace did it this way, instead of having to decipher all the numbers. If you know what numbers your looking for it's easy, but everybody's print out is different.
Click to expand...

also set the screen up for virtual view helps sell it in the shop when thay want to see it up on the screen.

hunter alignment machine is what i have been useing since i sarted doing alignments. only time i use bar graphs is caster/camber setting . then win toe for the front toe set and bam done.
 
Would new spring bushings help tighten up the front end any?
I had death wobble twice. Once on my Suburban because I drove it without the factory stabilizer (whoops). Once on my F-350, installing new polyurethane panhard rod bushings took alot of the wobble away ( I know our trucks lack these but thought it might be informative). I was ready to start messing with castor when I simply sold th truck!
 
Things are getting better

I installed a brand new steering stabilizer. I didn't realize how bad the other one was until I tried moving the new one by hand. The bushings on the old one were also very shot. The bolt had free play within the bushing. It does not death wobble any more, but I can still feel some vibrations at various speed. Death wobble is down, but not out.

I have the new front and rear steering ball joints, I hope to replace those soon.

I think when I replace the 2.5" front lift springs with the 4" lift for the front I was hoping to replace those bushing at that time.

Went back to the shop that did the alignment, they measure the castor angle at 5.75 degrees. He also said the camber was off. Need to put shims #5 on both side to set at proper angle. But he said it should not effect the wobble problem.

I will ride around on the new military bias ply tires another week then have them balanced. I will try to post a pic of my next time.
 
That castor is fine, the factory used 4 degrees and 8 degrees, ~6 is right in the middle.
 
Wobble dug in like a tick on a hound

Not sure what to do. The death wobble is still not going away. New bushings, top and bottom, new steering stabilizer, all new tie rod ends, both on the drag link, and the steering link. Balanced all the wheels. After talking to Steven at ORD, I added a 1/8 shim to the upper kingpin springs. While the shaking is down, it is not gone. Thinking about adding another 1/8 inch shims for a total of 1/4 on each side. Not sure what else to do.
 
I know this isn't much help or probably the answer you're looking for but my F-350 never had any death wobble running 35x12.50 BFG all terrains. It did it with 38" TSL SXs and 36" military HMMWV tires (both bias). It was worse with the HMMWV tires than the SXs. Seems like maybe the extra stick you get from bias tires may be contributing. I have no death wobble whatsoever with my current set up with D60 front and 37" radial HMMWV tires.
I wonder if a really stiff tie rod would help? Just pondering.
Good luck man.
 
You probably can't add 1/4" of shim, you may get into coil bind on the spring.

How is your steering box, does it have excessive play in the pitman arm?

It very well could be your tires, even if they are balanced. If they were out of balance for too long they could be out of round. Also, what condition are they?
 
Tire Condition

I was also worried about the coil bind in the kinpin springs. Tires used, got all four for $100 but have lots of tread. They are balanced but at least one is 1/2" to 3/4" out of round. Doesn't seem like too much play in the steering box. Pumped up tire pressure to make the bias ply less sticky. Runs great on the trail, just shaky on the road. My friends have dubbed it the wobble wagon. I don't want to buy new tires, can't afford.

What is the proper way to check play, in the pitman arm? Just disconnect the tie rod end, lock the steering wheel and see if it moves?
 
Square tires are always going to knock your teeth out, even on the tightest, smoothest steering and suspension.

You can get tires resurfaced to make them round. Done that on plenty bias tires for our heavy equipment. Hell, we bought some brand new carlisles for our tearoff truck once and didn't get above 15mph before it felt like the front of the truck was getting airborne. We drove those back to the shop and returned them lol.
 
Put hydro assist on your steering and chances are that will mask the problem and upgrade you for offroad use.
 
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