death

[lry040]

Okay everyone, I have a 1999 xj. I’m working on putting a 4.5'' suspension lift under it. It is my daily driver so a little at a time and when budget allows. I am doing the "Budget lift" I have put springs out of the front of an old F150 and I have air shocks in the back for now. So its not driving up hill to bad. I will be putting rear leaf packs from a Dakota and a SYE kit in ( its on order ) I do have a cv style drive shaft that was the front drive shaft from another 99 xj
That I will be using after the SYE kit is in. Now here is the problem. When I am traveling at 45mph or more, even the slightest little bump in the road will cause the jeep to shake violently! It jars your bones it is so bad... WOW. I have a snow plow that I will be using this winter that is what started the whole thing, but when I had the plow on after all this to date I didn’t have the problem as bad. I have taken the plow of for gas mileage and cooling and no snow.
I should also point out that I jacked up the front of the jeep, when I grab the tire I feel no play in anything, I also have no slop in the steering wheel. The shaking feels like it is from the driver side... Thanks for any help!

 

[BajaEdition]

this is getting me in many ways

ok, you have the springs from a ford in there, and are getting 4.5 inches of lift, did you change your shocks?
Did you address the steering linkage, or just go for it?
an XJ, that is an four link with a track bar in the front correct?
did you fix the trackbar so the axle is still centered?
How about the pitman arm, is it still stock?

you see there is no such thing as a budget lift
every time you change something you need to address something else

now what you are getting is called Death Wobble, and the reason is because the steering geometry is all messed up

so here is what you do to fix it

you buy a drop pitman arm of the correct size and install that
now your draglink is in the correct angle, now we have to put the axle in teh center of the jeep, once that is done we access the track bar and see if we need to get another or can adjust the mount. do not decide to do the moving of the mount yourself, you can make matters worse by putting it in the wrong place, I suggest getting an adjustable one you can make longer so it fits, now that the axle is centered and the pitman arm is correct and , the pitman arm and the track bar should be parallel to each other. If they are not then you will still get. get Death Wobble, they need to be on the same plane.
now we have eliminated Death wobble but need to address Bump Steer, have you bought new upper and lower control arms to match the lift?

get back to me once you have done all this or have taken everything off and put it back to stock

budget lifts are a misnomer, there are correct lifts and there are butchered lifts, I am afraid you are butchering a lift. and want us to tell you how to make it right, well the way to make it right is spend the money to make it right.