Bandit's World's Longest Track Bar Build

[BanditBronco]

First drive update and flex pics. They definitely don't have the same amount of flex as a duff/cage style arm which I anticipated based on how they felt free standing with the frame on jack stands. Like I said previously, they still have some static bind since they are just lengthened arms still relaying on the C-Bushings for side-to-side movement. I am good with some offroad compromise in return for some on road stability.

It tracks nice and straight for not having done an alignment and I am happy with how "tight" it feels going down the road.

Now for the demons I still seem to be plagued with. I originally started this upgrade because I had a few issues I wanted to resolve. First being the contact between the tie rod and track bar drop bracket on the frame. Second, some death wobble I had been chasing. I took care of issue #1 no problem with the new track bar build, but I am still having some bump induced death wobble.

Now that I know I don't have a track bar issue causing the death wobble, I have to look into the less likely suspects. After a bunch of steering wheel shaking, I realized that my ball joints are a little loose. In my head I can walk through how that could cause the tires to want to wonder around if I hit a sewer drain or a pothole. Anyone have any real-world experience with this scenario? I understand I am on 37's which can be hard on Dana 44 joints, but I probably have 2,000 miles tops on this set of Dana Spicers. It has been trailered most places in the past 2 years because it wasn't safely drivable on the street. They don't seem "bad" to me, more of just "loose". I think my first plan of action is going to be to get them back torqued to spec and see what that gives me in return.

I haven't done a complete tire swap to a buddies set or anything, but I have rotated mine around with no change in characteristics. Let me know if anyone has anything they want me to check, I really want to get this thing driving smooth with some confidence.

 

[Yeller]

after all of this work how much castor did you wind up with?

Loose ball joints are an issue. I've seen them fail in 10 miles with appropriate abuse in a racer. In that scenario the knuckles are flexing enough to cause the joints to fail prematurely, switching to Reid knuckles solved that issue. So don't just assume that the ball joint or install technique is to blame.

 

[DirtDonk]

How old are the tires? Not mileage, but actual years.
Are your miles all street miles, or have they been heavily offloaded already? And did they do the death wobble from the beginning, or did that start later. Perhaps after some wheeling?
Did you buy them new from a dealer, or from a private party?

I have always maintained that all those other loose components simply allow death wobble. They can’t on their own cause it.
Not without the tire’s input.
So as soon as you can arrange it, do the tire swap with your buddy and see what changes.

 

[DirtDonk]

Oh, and is it a real death wobble that won’t stop until you slow down? Or is it a shake that goes away on its own after a few seconds?
Do you have a discussion about it elsewhere?

 

[BanditBronco]

after all of this work how much castor did you wind up with?

Loose ball joints are an issue. I've seen them fail in 10 miles with appropriate abuse in a racer. In that scenario the knuckles are flexing enough to cause the joints to fail prematurely, switching to Reid knuckles solved that issue. So don't just assume that the ball joint or install technique is to blame.

I won't say exactly how much caster it has until it actually goes on a rack, and I can show it. I will say that it has more caster now then it previously did with stock arms, and it drove fine that way for years. I understand the concepts behind why it is, isn't, and should be. I don't think it is the cause of my issue, but I would like to go through the steps to find the root cause. Also, Ol' Blue's thread has enough caster theory to kill a cat. It is extremely possible that I ran through this set of ball joints that quickly from wheeling, I will take a closer look at them tonight and see if I can get some actual evidence.

How old are the tires? Not mileage, but actual years.
Are your miles all street miles, or have they been heavily offloaded already? And did they do the death wobble from the beginning, or did that start later. Perhaps after some wheeling?
Did you buy them new from a dealer, or from a private party?

I have always maintained that all those other loose components simply allow death wobble. They can’t on their own cause it.
Not without the tire’s input.
So as soon as you can arrange it, do the tire swap with your buddy and see what changes.

Tires I bought new in 2018, with 2018 date codes, they have been on the dirt 90% of the time and on the street 10%. They have seen non death wobble miles a few times in their life since 2018. Currently they have little to no actual mileage wear, only rock rash. I run a spool in the rear which obviously doesn't help with tire wear but unless I got a bad set that developed a premature separation that isn't visible from the outside, I have a hard time blaming it on the tires. Not saying that's not it, I know everyone loves defending their tires haha I guess I am more or less hoping that isn't the case. If I end up finding out that it is the tires, I am going to need Yeller to be my Maxxis sponsor.

 

[DirtDonk]

It's always the tires.
Does not mean you can't use the ones you have still, as long as tightening up all the loose items takes care of it. Just means that whatever fault was with the tires was not powerful enough to wobble as long as everything was gutentight.
But if you tighten everything and it still gives you a death wobble, or even just a slight wobble or shimmy, I'm afraid that your "off-road" tires are never going to be happy on the road.

Just on the off-chance that you have two bad ones, but not three or four, have you tried rotating just one side at a time yet? You said you rotated, but if you did both sides at the same time then you may have not narrowed it down enough.
I've seen more times that it was just one tire than more, but I have seen three and four bad tires on a single vehicle before too. In those cases no amount of rotating is going to rid them of the wobbles.

Paul

 

[Yeller]

I won't say exactly how much caster it has until it actually goes on a rack, and I can show it. I will say that it has more caster now then it previously did with stock arms, and it drove fine that way for years. I understand the concepts behind why it is, isn't, and should be. I don't think it is the cause of my issue, but I would like to go through the steps to find the root cause. Also, Ol' Blue's thread has enough caster theory to kill a cat. It is extremely possible that I ran through this set of ball joints that quickly from wheeling, I will take a closer look at them tonight and see if I can get some actual evidence.

Tires I bought new in 2018, with 2018 date codes, they have been on the dirt 90% of the time and on the street 10%. They have seen non death wobble miles a few times in their life since 2018. Currently they have little to no actual mileage wear, only rock rash. I run a spool in the rear which obviously doesn't help with tire wear but unless I got a bad set that developed a premature separation that isn't visible from the outside, I have a hard time blaming it on the tires. Not saying that's not it, I know everyone loves defending their tires haha I guess I am more or less hoping that isn't the case. If I end up finding out that it is the tires, I am going to need Yeller to be my Maxxis sponsor.

All good, I wasn't looking to do that all over again LOL, was a curiosity question, not debate. I do find the short life of the ball joints intriguing. I genuinely believe that the knuckles and possibly the C's become an issue at some point. Are you running assist? I couldn't tell looking at the pics.

Heck I need a Maxxis sponsor LOL. I do miss the race team being around, I could get some nice deals, like the treppador takeoffs on my buggy that just got "left" at my shop...... Now they were well abused, everyone of them has had the sidewall vulcanized more than once but they still work and hold air for a day, 2 days not so much....

I get it on the tires, you've rotated them with no change so I wouldn't jump on that too quickly. The tires I just took off were chunked enough that I thought they should at a minimum have some vibrations, nothing. I used to have a set of tires/wheels on the bronco that would shake like you described, rotated and didn't change, wound up being a crappy set of wheels, I doubt that is your issue, aluminum wheels are very, very rarely not true.

 

[toddz69]

I'll be very curious what your caster is. Do you know what your caster was before all this work?

A lot of caster with larger tires can generate larger forces that will bring death wobble more quickly.

Todd Z.

 

[Yeller]

I'll be very curious what your caster is. Do you know what your caster was before all this work?

A lot of caster with larger tires can generate larger forces that will bring death wobble more quickly.

Todd Z.

I have seen this too, didn't work on it but have been around one that had to be dialed back from 6.5 to 4.5, the only time I've seen 6.5 not even be drivable. I can say at 11.5 the steering is heavy LOL

 

[toddz69]

I have seen this too, didn't work on it but have been around one that had to be dialed back from 6.5 to 4.5, the only time I've seen 6.5 not even be drivable. I can say at 11.5 the steering is heavy LOL

Precisely.

Todd Z.

 

[BanditBronco]

All good, I wasn't looking to do that all over again LOL, was a curiosity question, not debate. I do find the short life of the ball joints intriguing. I genuinely believe that the knuckles and possibly the C's become an issue at some point. Are you running assist? I couldn't tell looking at the pics.

Heck I need a Maxxis sponsor LOL. I do miss the race team being around, I could get some nice deals, like the treppador takeoffs on my buggy that just got "left" at my shop...... Now they were well abused, everyone of them has had the sidewall vulcanized more than once but they still work and hold air for a day, 2 days not so much....

I get it on the tires, you've rotated them with no change so I wouldn't jump on that too quickly. The tires I just took off were chunked enough that I thought they should at a minimum have some vibrations, nothing. I used to have a set of tires/wheels on the bronco that would shake like you described, rotated and didn't change, wound up being a crappy set of wheels, I doubt that is your issue, aluminum wheels are very, very rarely not true.

I don't have assist on it yet, the cylinder is on the bench, that was coming up next after I am happy with all the little details on these upgrades. I definitely don't want to have any joint, knuckle, or C issues out on the trail to the extent I can control. I don't mind pulling out the ole plastic for nice parts, when necessary, but I also don't want to throw parts at it just for fun. So, say my joints look okay, but they are loose. If I re torque them, should I expect to be back sitting in the same boat I am currently fishing out of in a few months?

I'll be very curious what your caster is. Do you know what your caster was before all this work?

A lot of caster with larger tires can generate larger forces that will bring death wobble more quickly.

Todd Z.

Based on my previous and current pinion angles and what those look like, relative to the amount of caster built into the C's I currently have more caster than before. I would bet a handful of junkyard fuses that it is still fairly low on the spectrum. I don't think it has "too much" considering it probably had close to 0 before.

Give me a few days to get everything finish welded and painted, then I can dig into this as deep as I need to go. I will probably get the alignment checked on it before I dive much deeper. Mitch has been running 37's on basically the exact same set up as I have for almost as long as I have owned my Bronco which is like 17 years and hasn't ever had any issues. Not uncommon for me to be the one that gets the special issues though.

 

[Yeller]

I completely get the contagious uncommon issues....... I only seem to catch those too LOL

All I know to do is retorque and see what happens. It has obviously been solid for a long time and you don't have any goofy 1" back spaced wheels, wheel spacers, etc. so it may be fine and just an anomaly, 1 time is an issue, 2 times is a problem and needs to be examined closer, 3rd time get out the torch, we're fixing this now, is how I try to look at things that I have history with that have not been problematic.

If everything is tight and you are still getting a controllable shake, as in hit a bump and get a bit of shimmy and it goes away, assist will more than like resolve that.

 

[BanditBronco]

10-4 I like that plan! I just want to wheel and go get ice cream afterwards, is that too much to ask for? haha

 

[Yeller]

10-4 I like that plan! I just want to wheel and go get ice cream afterwards, is that too much to ask for? haha

Not at all

Groceries counts too

 

[BanditBronco]

After some help over the weekend from my Bronco buddies, we determined that the ball joints aren't loose, they are bad. So, I guess it's in with another set of joints to see how long they last. If I get about the same amount of time out of this next set, I will throw some orange knuckles on it, I guess.