I just purchased a 1988 250. It has a 44 front end with 6" of lift. It is setting on M/T 36", unbalanced. At about 45 MPH it goes into a death shake. The previous owner said when he had on other balanced tires it was perfect. I am guessing that the unbalanced tires brought havoc on the pivot bushing. Is this the correct thinking? Hopefully I can change the bushing and get a set of balanced tires and life is good. Another programming note. It has 16.5 X 14 wheels. I am getting to be an old man and while I want to take the family to the local mud hole every once in a while, I need a tire that gives me the best of both worlds. I have 6" of lift so anything would fit I would think. Any suggestions? Thanks for your help!

 

if youre experiencing the infamous "death wobble"....it has nothing to do with the tires or their balance.


you have bad components in the front end...


check all tie rods, ball joints, wheel bearings. youll find your problem.


as for tires, military oz 37's are a great compromise between road driving and mud/snow. theyre cheap as dirt, and can take a beating. theyre also on the heavy side, but ive never cared.

 

The ball joints are new as well as the arms. I can lift up the front and move the arm to the pass wheel because the bushing is gone. Maybe I'm not explaining something correctly.

 

O yea that'll do it. Replace that, and be sure tie rods and wheel bearings are tight, and you will be good to go.

 

Dang, not to disagree, but I have had Death Wobble on a solid front axle with coil suspension and I have even seen it on a 2wd axle with coil suspension. I cured my DW with dual opposing Bilstein gas pressurized shock absorbers used as a steering stabilzer. People will say that I just "masked" the real problem, but that was after $3,000 of new ball joints, tie rods, track bar bushings, etc. to make sure all front end components were tight* which did not cure the DW.

So, just for another point of view, here is what causes Death Wobble in my opinion: Any bouncing of one tire whether in or out (bad ball joints) or up and down (bad shocks especially with larger tires) or front to back (bad tie rods or steering drag link) or all of the above types of bounce due to bad tire balance exacerbated by too much wheel offset (which acts as a lever on the suspension and steering components).

Basically what happens is that one tire hits a hard bump and it "punches" that bounce (like an air filled rubber basketball) through the tie rod to the other tire which flexes its sidewall and then punches back and starts bouncing back and forth and then repeats so that a harmonic resonance propogates which will only stop when the vehicle slows to nearly a stop.

The larger the tires the bigger the problem. Think about it. Your frame, your suspension, your hydraulic steering box,** your shock absorber diameter, volume and valving are all designed to handle the punch of a tire and wheel combo of a certain mass (weight). The stock suspension can (sometimes barely) effectively dampen that amount of mass, but it can't effectively dampen a mass larger than it was designed for. So you must increase dampening to prevent that mass from propogating DW. That's what dual opposing gas pressurized shock absorbers do. They increase tire dampening laterally through the tie rod, just like your shock absorbers increase tire dampening vertically.

After spending $3,000 to make sure that everything was tight in the front axle, I dampened the bouncing rubber tires so that they could not propogate that bounce through the tie rod by buying and then modding by welding up a Rough Country dual stabilizer set up and then using Bilstein dual opposing gas pressurized shocks instead of steering stabilizers (because dual opposing steering stabilizers put resistance on the steering box both ways, while dual opposing gas pressurized shocks cancel out each other to eliminate resistance to the steering box.) Pictures of set ups are here:

http://www.sportsmobileforum.com/vie...obble&start=45

Just for giggles, go ahead and tighten up your steering box and see if that doesn't INCREASE your Death Wobble. How can tightening up your steering components actually increase DW? Because you are making it more efficient for the one tire to push its punch through the tie rod to the other tire and then for the other tire to punch back and so forth.

I suggest you balance your tires and replace your shocks if they aren't new and have the rest of the steering components looked at for looseness and by all means replace any worn steering and suspension components. Then consider the set up I have gone to and many others have too.


*BTW if you search long enough, you will find DW on NEW Ford and Dodge trucks discussed on the forums. You can't have a tighter suspension than a new suspension, yet if a particular vehicle is prone to DW it will, new or old.


** Yes, in my opinion a hydraulic steering box in addition to steering the wheels acts as a tie rod dampener.

 

Sounds like what you need is a good set of DUAL STEERING STABILIZER SHOCKS ... and your good to go ... all this stuff about bearings and balancing and alignment and all that stuff is probably not the case ...When you lift a a truck you should always put stabalizer shocks in or else it WILL rattle your front end apart ... I have a dana 60 in the front end of my truck with a 6 inch lift, use to get the wobbles all the time until i put steering stabalizer shocks on it... Dual stabalizer shock are the way to go, Skyjacker has them for $150 and its well worth the money ... You wont get the wobbles again

 

What d60 are you running? Stabilizers are not the answer. He has a confirmed bad pivot bushing until he fixes that there is no other bandaid or solution that will work....I run 37 's and 42s with no stabilizer and no death wobble. Hell, for over a year I didn't even have shocks.

I ask which d60 you have cuz that matters.

 

OK gentlemen, let's not get our panties in a bunch* over the OP who has only 2 posts on this forum and may never come back to read our advice.

That said, I thought that the F250 came with a Dana 50 TTB not a Dana 44 TTB.

Edit: 89F2urd: Also, I am concerned that it may not be "confirmed" about his pivot bushing. I am hoping he could post a video of it or provide a measurement of how far it moves passenger to driver and back.


* And I don't want to **** anybody off because you guys likely know more than me and I will be wanting your help on my 5.8L issues...

 

I had the death wobble in my 88 f450 mason dump. Mine wound up being a loose crossmember from when the clutch was replaced. Just throwing that out there as something to check...good luck with it I know I was going crazy with the front end trying to figure it out

 

Not meaning to intrude on the OP's post but I have a death wiggle, not a wobble, with the 285s. With the 37s the wiggle becomes much more apparent. But, I've had the real death wobble (with the track bar removed) and what I have is not the death wobble.

Along the lines of what Tim Hodgson was saying, my tie rod, the one that goes tire to tire, is noticeably more flexible than the drag link. I think I was just kicking stuff as I'm currently mad at it but noticed that the drag link was very solid when I kicked it, but the tire rod was noticeably less solid. Not the pivots, the solid metal rod parts.

I can see this could let the tires toe in/out in a wiggly sort of way.

 

whos panties are in a bunch?


the dana 50 didn't come standard in f250's until later, sometime in the 90's. ive seen them in brick nose trucks, but theyre mostly in big block and diesel trucks. the light duty 5.0's and even the HD 351's largely came with 44's.


the 44 and 50 ttb's share most of the same parts, the outers being the main differences between the two. 50 uses same outers as d60's, and the 44's use, well, 44 outers.


it may not be confirmed...but gotta take it at face value. have no choice, we aren't going to look at his truck for him. im always skeptical in these kinds of threads myself, because im not positive people truly tested their components to be good despite their claims they did so.


I think its relatively safe to assume his pivot bushing is bad, since it seems that its deteriorated to the point that he has obvious movement that is hard to miss.

 

'89F2urd: Let me apologize and rephrase. At this point, you have 1,382 posts trying to help people like the OP (and me).
The OP has 2 posts.
The OP says he has new TTB arms. How in the heck do you have new TTB arms and not a new pivot bushing? *

Yes, IMO the OP has a responsibility at this point to show us the movement in his pivot bushing with a video or pictures or measurements. It is only fair, he is asking for your help and the help of others here.
What I hate to see is a bunch of brothers fighting amongst ourselves over a 2-post OP who won't even come back to post something which shows the problem better.
He is making us work without the necessary info.
He shouldn't make us fight too.
I didn't mean to offend you. You know more than me. And I would like to be able to call on your advice in the future.
But the OP should put up or shut up.


* And if the OP's prior owner had a new pivot bushing installed when the new arms were installed, then the allegedly bad pivot bushing is likely not the cause of the DW, but is the effect of the DW. See, I am getting drawn into the OP's bull***t again...

** I guess I am the one with my panties in a bunch over this. We have had "help vampires" over at another forum I frequent. They throw a piece of red meat in front of dogs and then watch them fight over it. I am sick of that. There is a poster here by the name of "realslowww" who is constantly doing the same thing in the various engine forums.
The OP may be a stand up kinda guy who has just got busy and hasn't had time to come back to this post. Or he may be a lazy a$$ liberal who doesn't have the courtesy to realize that he has asked for help and has a duty (which my dad referred to as "common courtesy") to respond, because he thinks that the internet and your time is "free." Nothing is free. Not the knowledge and experienced you've gained. And not your time trying to help by sharing it. I've never met the OP. I don't know his character. But I will tell you this: If the OP won't do his job by meeting us half-way we should note his username and just move on... Please accept my apology.