What the #^$&#$%#

[revruss]

Friends,

I went off roading for the first time yesterday in my 1998 TJ. It was really by accident in that I never thought the ground I was treading on would present any difficulty.

I got stuck. Tried for three hours to get out and finally called a tow truck. As I drove the Jeep home it started to bounce pretty good at 40 mph. I thought it might just be the weight of the mud on the wheels. So, this morning I sprayed off the wheels.

It helped. I can now get to 50 mph before it startes shaking. I've posted two pics at the bottom of this page:

http://www.coe.unt.edu/Elleven/jeep.htm

Any ideas for this newbie as to what might be happening?

Thanks!

Russell

[zachv]

You may have well knocked off the wheel weights and that is causing an out-of-balance issue. Also, if you hit something hard you may have knocked the front end out of alignment or you could have bent a steering link.
Good luck.

[rider_1313]

try to explain the problem more, is it shaking a lot? is it hard to steer? is it pulling to one side? does it do it all the time, or only under acelleration? if you give more info, we may be able to help more. the wheel weights is a great place to start looking though.

[revruss]

Thanks zachv & rider_1313!

I'll try my best to give more info. The shaking now seems to start at around 50 mph. It does seem to straighten out a bit after higher speeds (60 mph). The shaking, to me, is pretty bad. The steering wheel shakes pretty good too but the vehicle does not pull to either side.

Does that help?

Russell

[PJ]

Hope you had your AAA paid up ;)

The term is called: Death Rattle! :(

Take your ride to the nearest Autozone / Tires Plus etc...and have them do a wheel balance.

Then, come back here to the board and search for the topic "alignment" (you're better off doing that yourself - rather than paying someone for such a simple operation) Reset your toe-in, and you should be back in business.

Unless you put a dent in your front drive shaft - which is unlikely, but could cause the same effect (but it wouldn't "fix" itself at 60mph)

Then, after your done.......you can start asking about lifts, 33" tires.........Oh, and a winch ;)

[DUSTYCEDAR]

make sure there is no mud on the inside of the rims take them off and check
also look for wheel weights like the others have stated if u dont have any or they may have moved on the rims
and make sure u changed the summer air to fall air in all your tires including the spare lol
keep us posted

[AaronC]

you said you got "stuck".. what exactly happened? that could help us figure things out too... it could be the death wobble, as stated before.. thats pretty comman in jeeps with a lift kit, especially after off roadin.. so, yeah, what happend? were you stuck in mud? on a rock? in a tree? haha

[Jaboobie]

Did you spray off the underneath really well? I ask because that happened to me when I was offroading in Pines Barren, NJ. The mud built up like concrete layers on the undercarriage and wheels and it threw everything off. I spent about $6 in quarters at the carwash before I got all the mud off.

['03 X Colby]

Aight my jeep does the same thing everytime I go muddin. So it's normal for me now. You just need to clean underneath really good and make sure you get by your wheels. Just drive for a couple days and the vibration will go away. If it doesn't and it gets like mine used to, if I would go 50+, it would vibrate really bad until I got to 40 mph. That means your rotars are warped. It's possible to warp your rotars when you get stuck in water w/ mud because they get really hot and it's just like when you torch metal so you can bend it. So for now just keep driving it and make sure all your underneath is clean then do it. Don't waste the money on the tire rotation, but when you do rotate your tires, if you take it in and get them rotated make sure they tighten the lugs at the right FPP, because that will also cause your rotars to warp. So don't worry about the vibration unless it lasts more than a week and your underneath is cleaned.

[CJ 7 project]

Are your tires at equal preessure? My F-150 has a slow leaker in the front now, and it causes the wheel to shake back and forth at certain speeds. did you air down to try and unstick yourself?

['03 X Colby]

Ya the tires are equal pressure. I don't know why my Jeep does it but I just know that it does that when I go muddin for a while.

[Rednex Inc.]

might want to check the drive lines whill being stuck you cold of knock some of the drive line weights off or you might have bent one could been a rock in the mud

[jeepfreek383]

sounds like you laid a beatin on the rear ujoints check it out make surew there is no play in them