HELP!!! I STILL HAVE THE DEATH SWAY

[Karenymoreno]

HELLO FELLOW JEEP L❤VERS.. IM NEW HERE.BUT I NEED A LOT OF HELP ON MY BABY..I HAVE AN 03 JEEP LIMITED LIBERTY SPORT.. 5 SPEED MANUAL TRANSMISSION .. I HAVE REPLACED THE FRONT SWAY BAR LINKS.. INNER AND OUTER TIE ROD ENDS..AND FRONT LOWER BALL JOINTS.. AND IT STILL HAS THE HORRIBLE FEELING LIKE IM IN A BOAT.. ITS ON A 3" LIFT KIT.. ON 18 " RIMS..
I KNOW.. I KNOW.. ROUGH COUNTRY IS A BAD KIT BUT I DIDNT FIND THIS OUT TILL AFTER I ALREADY HAD IT INSTALLED.. ‍ SO IM TRYING TO DO WITH WHAT I ALREADY HAVE SO PLEASE TO CRITICIZE ME.. IM TRYING HERE.. LOL ‍

 

[lfhoward]

A couple of things come to mind.

1 - Did they do an alignment after the lift and front suspension work? A poor alignment can cause feelings like you describe. A 3” lift is about the max for being able to align the Jeep properly, unless you got JBA upper control arms. If you got a printout from the alignment shop, post it up here and we can take a look.

2 - The issue could be in the back instead of the front. The KJ’s had a recall on their rear lower control arms a few years ago because they were rusting out. Have those and their bushings checked. Also, make sure the ball joint on the top of the rear upper control arm (boomerang shaped part) is attached to the body as it should be. In other words, make sure the rear axle isn’t able to float around.

 

[tommudd]

The right specs for alignment when lifted are posted on here many times
Then any spacer lift with stock, even brand new coils , will give a bad feeling espicially when alignment is off
The rear lower control arms if bad will give you of feeling like the KJ is going one way when you give it the gas and then when you let off go the other way

 

[Orville]

+1 on the rear LCA recall -- if your jeep hasn't had the recall done, it's almost certainly worth doing to be safe, and it's free.

A long shot but it happened to me: if your steering rack bushings are toast this can have somewhat similar symptoms to an alignment problem or death wobble: it's like trying to drive in high wind as you fight movements in the steering rack. Easy check: with the vehicle on the ground, have someone gently push the steering wheel one way and another while you look at the steering rack. If the rack moves up and down relative to the frame, the bushings have gone. Like I said, maybe not that common, but it's easy to rule out and drove me mad for a while because none of the pros seemed to notice they were trying to do alignments on something that had 1" free play.