Dana 60 Death Wobble

[Strick]

I had the wobble at a similar speed either accelerating or stopping. 85 D30 with a modified spring pack and 37 Goodyear radials. I replaced the tie rods and installed an actual lift, braided brake hoses and steering block. This took care of the wobble. It would actually run 60 on the interstate after the fix.

Strickland

 

[Vetal4]

I think rebuilding the kingpins and repacking the front bearings is a good place to start.

Its hard to tell from your description of the issue because you go back and forth between calling it a vibration and death wobble.

Death wobble is a violent jerking felt in the steering wheel (and whole vehicle usually) that often requires a complete stop of the vehicle to end the wobble. Sometimes hard acceleration will bring a vehicle out of wobble too. High speeds sometimes keep wobbles from getting started due to the gyroscope effect and tremendous centrifugal force the tires are under

You can experience vibration or wobble without it being "Death wobble."

When you inspected your steering components for wear how did you go about it? My recommendation is to have someone rapidly turn the steering wheel back and forth just far enough to stress the steering & suspension components and start to move the tire. Preferably someone strong enough to do it with the engine off. Go underneath to look, listen and feel, check every connecting component for play. It doesn't take too much before there's enough to allow wobble. The worn track bar bushing in my Jeep would allow less than 1/8" of play and caused super violent wobble if I hit the wrong bump at the wrong speed.

What condition are your tires in? An out of balance tire or one with a broken belt or bad cupping can initiate wobble too.

Once a vehicle starts getting death wobble for any reason multiple additional causes will appear, the violent shaking rapidly wears out other steering and suspension component’s.

I should be more precise in my language then......I don't feel any brake vibration/pedal feedback, steering is usually great, no vibration though the wheel that would suggest an unbalanced tire. Though, as others have pointed out, this doesn't necessarily eliminate these factors. I do get a the violent steering wheel jerking at low speeds when lightly braking....not easy to reproduce so it could very well be hitting a bump in the road sets it off rather than just braking. Unfortunately I'm limited to testing components my grabbing them and throwing my weight around, trying to get them to move. I realize that this isn't optimal and have arranged help for this weeking to check everything again. As it stands, the only play I can detect is a defection when pushing very hard on the passenger side tire. The deflection is very small, and "springy", as in the wheel pops back into position as soon as pressure is released. This leads me to believe shims and spring need to be replaced, though I could be wrong about the cause of the play (am going to do it anyway as I already have the parts on order).

Tires appear to be in great shape, don't see any cupping, but rotating the tires and taking to the tire shop for balancing/inspection is definitely on my checklist, as are brakes. So my attack plan is:

Steering stabilizer (complete, done first as it was quick and I could obtain the parts)
Shims and Springs (as soon as order comes in)
Tires (rotation to be done with shims and springs) - take to tire shop for inspection/balancing if problem persists
Tie rods/draglink/pitman arm - inspect again w/ help this weekend
Check brakes/replace rotors - when time allows/if problem persists
Repack bearing - to do with brakes
Also will try to drive between these steps to see if I can reproduce the wobble

 

[Grit dog]

IMO low speed DW is 100% a function of worn steering components.
Since it doesn’t happen at high speed, or more accurately hasn’t, you can mostly rule out insufficient + caster.
That said, DW at high speed unofficially is most prevalent on concrete roads with evenly spaced cont jts and initiation of a slight turn.

 

[Grit dog]

@Lu Blunt has a point. I’ve seen and heard of more DW in kingpin axles than ball joint axles.
Not limited to kp axles by any means but I feel they’re more finicky or susceptible to DW.
Not an official diagnosis. Totally subjective.

Just like non SFA front ends can get DW. Vast majority of DW is in SFAs but we had a 2006 Dodge Charger that would get DW sometimes when braking at highway speeds.
Same trigger, conc CJs and slight turn, + slightly warped or glazed brake rotors. Drive fine otherwise. BJs were tight, struts were good. Tires were good. Tie rods were the primary suspect. Can’t confirm though as I fixed the problem with a for sale sign….

 

[Frankenchevy]

I like to shotgun all the parts at the truck. It’ll fix it every time. No death wobble.

 

[Vetal4]

Update:
Finished replacement of the kingpin bushing and springs driver's side looked pretty okay, but passenger side spring was short more than 1/4", probably closer to 1/2"...bushing was twisted a little as well. Put it back together and drove it, no problems. Not done yet though, still going to go through steering again with another person this weekend, then brakes, tires etc. We'll see if anything else is wrong.