Death Wobble is here

[SShafranko]

I got the death wobble today and went under the truck to inspect. Found the body of the truck moving side to side as the steering wheel turned. I looked at the track bar bushings and boom there it was. About half inch of movement like the bushings are completely anhialated. The only problem is i replaced the factory bushings with Genos urethane bushings four months ago. What gives? Could it just be loose?

 

[jhenderson]

I had the same problem. I had a clunk when I turned the wheel. I had replaced the stock bushings with Geno's about 4 months ago, and the bolt on the drivers side had loosened up about 1/2 turn. Not enough to show up in driving, just a clunk. I used red locktight and that seemed to do the trick.

 

[JCockerill]

i ended up getting an aftermarket carli track bar. bushings are much beefier

 

[SShafranko]

I will mess with it today. I guess tightening it will fix it? It just seems like there is so much movement like the bushing is shot. But they are around four months old i guess their ok. I'll see later. Thanks

 

[TimothyLong]

I have seen a few posts from guys who said that the replacement bushings wear out quickly. The consensus seems to be going with either a Carli or a Thuren aftermarket track bar from what I've seen.

 

[SShafranko]

I have seen a few posts from guys who said that the replacement bushings wear out quickly. The consensus seems to be going with either a Carli or a Thuren aftermarket track bar from what I've seen.

I understand that replacing the track bar will resolve the issue. But i guess i am looking for an anwser as to how a four month old URETHANE bushing can go bad when the RUBBER bushing lasted 170,000 miles? Is there a part that wears out over time such as the track bar itself that makes the new bushing wear prematurely? Or is the new bushing just a piece of crap? Maybe the anwser is not a Carli bar but another factory rubber bushing for a fraction of the price? I don't know i am confused. I took the day off tomorrow so that i can look into this thing and take it apart for inspection.



I will post my findings.

 

[TimothyLong]

I have 128K on mine with the original rubber bushings and I know that mine are shot. Like you, I have a lot of side to side movement and the steering is really squashy. While I don't have DW yet, I have all of the onset symptoms and I need to do something about it soon. You pose a good question as to why the urethane bushings wore out after 4 months. I would have expected them to last longer than that as well. I don't recall of the posts mentioning how quick that "quick" really is when referring to the urethane bushing wear. Perhaps someone who has had experience with them might post their observations. The thing about the Carli and Thuren track bars are that they use an all metal bushing on one end. On the other end, Carli uses a Derlin bushing, which is a DuPont resin that is way stronger and more durable than rubber or urethane. I don't know exactly what Thuren uses, but I'm sure that it's probably something similar. In any event, these track bars/bushings are WAY better than the factory crap we have. It irks me that guys like us have to spend a lot of $$$ to buy aftermarket equipment just to make our trucks run like they should to begin with. Just my $0. 02. Anyway, I'm curious to see what you find out.