Dana 60 Death Wobble

[Vetal4]

I mentioned this in previous post about driving my new-to-me truck back home after purchase (1988 V30 3+3 4x4), but I had what I now know is known as a "death wobble" at one point in town.....it was during braking so I figured must brake related. I inspected everything roadside and could find anything wrong so kept driving....nothing for the rest of the drive. Truck did have a wheel seal leak so I redid the drum on that side (will do other side soon) and fixed a minor pull stopping. But under certain conditions (kind of hard to reproduce) still has the wobble. It seems to only happen when I'm braking from about 35 mph, and only sometimes then. I think it has to do with how aggressive I am on the brakes. I am totally unfamiliar with this situation, never had it happen before.

Truck stops well, doesn't have steering wheel vibrations otherwise and braking is also generally smooth with no steering vibration except in this one instance. It actually drives really nice otherwise. In my attempt to find the root of the problem I looked over tie rod ends. pitman arm, drag link etc. No play that I could tell. Steering box seems like it has the play that it should (or at least that I would expect)...no wallering in pitman arm, rag joint seems okey, etc. Drivers side wheel is rock solid, no play there. On the passenger side I can move the top of the wheel in juuusst a bit if I push HARD, it springs right back. At first I thought maybe the bearings but it doesn't seem like a bearing wobble...the spring back makes it seem like a worn kingpin bushing, am I wrong here?

My question is...would that along be enough to cause this, seems like the wobble is usually initiated when braking into a turn...would this tiny amount of shift be enough to throw the camber off which then springs back and creates a nasty little feed loop? It seems like most of these death wobble cases are an intersection of worn components that I don't really think is at play here. Could a worn kingpin bushing plus poor tire balance cause this? Doesn't really feel like tire are out of balance though...BTW truck is not lifted or anything, all stock.

Interested to know your thoughts......

 

[PrairieDrifter]

Worn out steering/suspension components. I would be suspect of warped rotors.

 

[Radiohead]

Ball joints? Or warped crazy rotors.
Can't find a decent pic online to see how it's put together

 

[GTX63]

I had one truck that had a warped rotor. It would only show itself when decelerating down a steep grade and turning at the same time. I chalked it up to the rears being slightly out of adjustment and the heavy load on one side.

 

[SquareRoot]

Ball joints? Or warped crazy rotors.
Can't find a decent pic online to see how it's put together

No ball joints in a Dana 60.

 

[idahovette]

Usually a combination of loose parts plus an unbalanced or bad tire, then hitting the right bump to set it off??

 

[QBuff02]

kingpins are more than likely worn. Also steering stabilizer. I had a dana 60 one time when i was younger that I couldn't afford to rebuild that was worn out and did the same thing and replaced the stock stabilizer with a heavy duty one and it cured the death wobble on 33's but it was still noticeable on 35's. And that technically was only a crutch. My current truck with a Dana 60 that has been gone through and everything is new and right and with no stabilizer on it and 33's it would every once in awhile "shimmy" across bumps and at a certain speed. Put a new stabilizer on it as I noticed it had oil residue inside and outside the shock boot and suspected it failed, and it hasn't done it since. Sometimes its the nature of the beast, and depending on who you talk to and what internet forum you're on, they will literally blast you on a Dana 60 that "you're doing it wrong, man!" "y U no dana 60, eh?!" "stabilizers are crutches for posers who don't know how to rebuild their axles!" etc etc. Here's my thing, if a new stabilizer otherwise solves the problem, fixed is fixed. And in my case, the axle is rebuilt and it still had a wheel shimmy now and then until I replaced the failing stabilizer.

 

[Rumbledawg]

only had wobble on my 60 when i put my bias swamps on ( 42's) and it only happened at around 30 mph, go faster or slower and it would disappear, hold it at 30 and it could get pretty violent.
new kingpin bushings, new bearings, spring bushings, cross over and stabilizers, nothing would get rid of it except going faster or slower.
finally ended up shaving the swamps and it just about eliminated any wobble at 30

 

[Vetal4]

I had one truck that had a warped rotor. It would only show itself when decelerating down a steep grade and turning at the same time. I chalked it up to the rears being slightly out of adjustment and the heavy load on one side.

Thats interesting, I've only experienced warped rotors than vibrated whenever you brake.....I'll check that out.

kingpins are more than likely worn. Also steering stabilizer. I had a dana 60 one time when i was younger that I couldn't afford to rebuild that was worn out and did the same thing and replaced the stock stabilizer with a heavy duty one and it cured the death wobble on 33's but it was still noticeable on 35's. And that technically was only a crutch. My current truck with a Dana 60 that has been gone through and everything is new and right and with no stabilizer on it and 33's it would every once in awhile "shimmy" across bumps and at a certain speed. Put a new stabilizer on it as I noticed it had oil residue inside and outside the shock boot and suspected it failed, and it hasn't done it since. Sometimes its the nature of the beast, and depending on who you talk to and what internet forum you're on, they will literally blast you on a Dana 60 that "you're doing it wrong, man!" "y U no dana 60, eh?!" "stabilizers are crutches for posers who don't know how to rebuild their axles!" etc etc. Here's my thing, if a new stabilizer otherwise solves the problem, fixed is fixed. And in my case, the axle is rebuilt and it still had a wheel shimmy now and then until I replaced the failing stabilizer.

Yeah I'm starting with bushing and springs, and tire rotation I think, we'll see what that does. Yeah I've seen the same forums...the thing is most of these guys are running big tires, etc. They are operating outside design parameters, there are a lot of forces that are magnified on the fronts I'm sure. If everything else is rebuilt and you need the damper to overcome that last bit of vibration...so be it.

Thanks for the replies all, I'll keep you apprised of the situation.

 

[hoagster]

kingpins are more than likely worn. Also steering stabilizer. I had a dana 60 one time when i was younger that I couldn't afford to rebuild that was worn out and did the same thing and replaced the stock stabilizer with a heavy duty one and it cured the death wobble on 33's but it was still noticeable on 35's. And that technically was only a crutch. My current truck with a Dana 60 that has been gone through and everything is new and right and with no stabilizer on it and 33's it would every once in awhile "shimmy" across bumps and at a certain speed. Put a new stabilizer on it as I noticed it had oil residue inside and outside the shock boot and suspected it failed, and it hasn't done it since. Sometimes its the nature of the beast, and depending on who you talk to and what internet forum you're on, they will literally blast you on a Dana 60 that "you're doing it wrong, man!" "y U no dana 60, eh?!" "stabilizers are crutches for posers who don't know how to rebuild their axles!" etc etc. Here's my thing, if a new stabilizer otherwise solves the problem, fixed is fixed. And in my case, the axle is rebuilt and it still had a wheel shimmy now and then until I replaced the failing stabilizer.

That was my issue with the death wobble also, Steering stabilizer had a hole punched thru it but wasn't visible until I removed it.

 

[bucket]

If everything in the suspension seems tight, pay very close attention to the spring bushings, particularly the left front bushing in a truck with push-pull steering.

 

[Lu Blunt]

I went thru everything on my 1979 k30 3+3 before I fixed the death wobble. A good alignment shop will be able to tell if your steering has too much play or if the leaf spring bushings are too worn to stay in spec. I had the wheels n tires rotated and balanced a few times but that only seemed to help mild vibration at highway speed and didnt do much for my death wobble when braking. Replacing worn out king pins is definitely worth it. I had replaced all the worn steering parts, new bushings front to back, new leaf springs, new shocks and steering damper, new king pins, rebuilt driveshafts. Truck rode 100x better but still had death wobble when stopping at speeds below 45mph. Resurfaced the front the rotors and the death wobble went away for a week or so then slowly started coming back. What finally fixed it for good was new front brake rotors n calipers and I rebuilt the rear drums. I think the rear brakes were doing nothing and would warp the front rotors in no time. Truck never had vibration in brake pedal while braking it would just throw it into a death wobble

 

[Vetal4]

Okay I have new bushings and spring on order, new stabilizer on ( just to get it more drivable and needed to be done anyway). Seems like a few people have had rotor issues that weren’t apparent under all breaking issues, so I’ll be checking on those as well as alignment.

I went thru everything on my 1979 k30 3+3 before I fixed the death wobble. A good alignment shop will be able to tell if your steering has too much play or if the leaf spring bushings are too worn to stay in spec. I had the wheels n tires rotated and balanced a few times but that only seemed to help mild vibration at highway speed and didnt do much for my death wobble when braking. Replacing worn out king pins is definitely worth it. I had replaced all the worn steering parts, new bushings front to back, new leaf springs, new shocks and steering damper, new king pins, rebuilt driveshafts. Truck rode 100x better but still had death wobble when stopping at speeds below 45mph. Resurfaced the front the rotors and the death wobble went away for a week or so then slowly started coming back. What finally fixed it for good was new front brake rotors n calipers and I rebuilt the rear drums. I think the rear brakes were doing nothing and would warp the front rotors in no time. Truck never had vibration in brake pedal while braking it would just throw it into a death wobble

I like that rig a lot, very tough looking

 

[CalSgt]

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.

 

[Memaloose]

After reading all the above replies, I agree with loose/worn parts. I was thinking loose lugnuts, unbalanced tires and or worn tires, worn wheel bearings.