if you have never seen or experienced a death wobble, the violence is impressive. the one today ripped the renia propane heater right off the wall of the van. on my last cali trip in the quiggly e350 4x4 i rebuilt the front end. ball joints, tie rods, bushings. if it moved it got a new one. after i got back about 6k on the rebuild a bf goodrich ta radial internally separated, got a bubble and started a death wobble. that wobble destroyed the rebuilt front end. that makes 7 of those bf tires to bubble on me. so parked it and got all the stuff to do it again. i have a 03 2500 dodge so i used that. fuel pump went out so i put a 130$ fuel pump in,, pump lasted 4 months. being hesitant to try another pump i decided to put the 17" good dodge tires and rims on the van and see if that made it work for a while. same off set, didnt rub or hit. cool. so for the 6 miles to get to store, post office it was fine. on newly paved roads. worked so well i questioned if i could just get tires and not have to rebuild the front end again. i was wrong. not long after the new pavement turned to the normal bumpy pot hole highway we have i got death wobble again. pikka was not impressed. limped it home home at 35 mph and there she sits. i think 4 more red urethane bushings and il have all the stuff to do it again. plus a power steering gearbox and p/s pump for good measure. kinda losing faith in the e350 as a reliable but out/camping rig. not sure if i can do a leafspring front end or not but i am considering it. really thought it would make the 250 mile round trip today. mom allways said wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up first. she never mentioned both hands filling up with shit. oh well i should have know better. at least i feel good enough to fix it. again.
I ask because my buddy had a quigly conversion. That was always a squirrely bastard at highway speeds. Especially when we put a SB chevy long block in the back behind the rear axle. We weren't shining for squirrels, but the headlights were over topping on coming cars. I'm not sure if he had the Kingpin front end or the ball joint one. But I do remember him adding a steering damper. He also rebuilt the front end a couple of times. Sound like you are in the same boat as he was. It's a great rig off road as you are going mighty slow but on the freeway, well it was an adventure and cargo loading matters. Also what load rating are you tires? Load Range D or E
yeah the moral of this story dont rely on a e350 for your bugout. i ran stock 245/75/16 load range e. ,,,, i added a 50gl auxillry tank where the spare was. it was empty today,,, but it fishtails on ice. i looked today and i dont see a leafspring front end working.
ahhh the good ol death wobble... takes me back to when folks started lifting their trucks back in the late 70s...
I don't like BF Badrich tires. Have you looked at all the bushings, front and rear? My 92 f-250 has stock size tires and steers fine. When I bought it, I replaced the front springs, which were riding on the stops. Even like this, the front tires were worn evenly.
i never heard of death wobble till i got this van. its a long list of stuff iv done. the body is rotting faster then i can patch it. Alaska salts the road and sprays salt brine on it.its destroying even newer cars truck,brakes, calipers seize. state says wash your car/truck. a tale of warning so others dont fall into the same rabbit hole.
The REAL problem with Both these rigs is the GOD DAMN Multi Link front suspensions that both manufactures decided was a good idea to adopt to road trucks! A properly designed triangulated 4 link suspension like the Dodge is sort of mimicking should work well and last several hundred thousand miles with good maintenance, however, they went cheap, used stamped steel parts and el-cheap-o bushings! It only took dodge nearly 15 years to figure out that the front suspension was junk! Ford was even worse, initially running their ITB front suspension on second gen Bronco's and E-series vans and later the F-150 trucks, it worked until it didn't, usually around 75 thousand miles, and then you were forever chasing your tail trying to fix it, ask anyone with the E-series vans or ITB pickups other then the super duties that still had a solid front axle, and they will tell you, there is NO fix except to build from scratch an entire suspension system from the ground up! There is a good reason Ford got out of building 4X4 vans, that front suspension was a big one, the Centurion Bronco conversion was another! It was JEEP ( with it's TJ) that finally showed the world how to build a proper multi link suspension correctly, and there are rigs out there with nearly a million miles on them, trouble free! BFG tires! There's a whole industry built on HATE for BFG, the main problem is most daily drivers pick the wrong tire for the rig and the duty they expect, and then get pissed that 1) tread life sucked, and 2) they had a tread failure or separation, almost 100% of that is operator error, the idiot driver operating his rig WELL above the rated road speed of those tires! BFG is partially to blame here, in offering so many different treads, and softness ratings, and such,, as well as crawler specific tires, so unless your running a close to stock size all terrain BFG, you just shot yourself in the ass with their tires and your expectations! I run the BFG Kreepy Krawlers on several of my rigs, those tires have a speed rating no higher then 55 MPH,a nd even then, it's not a good idea, and they kinda suck for road driving, and especially wet, but you take them off road, there are very few tires that can keep up and them! The KM-2 and newer KM-3 series, and the KO-2 tires are the gold standards in off road performance, but it comes at a fairly steep price, and that's road driving, ass it they suck and everyone that knows off roading, KNOWS they suck as a road tire! For actual serious road driving with an actual Krawler spec truck, the Super Swampers are Kings, loud as all of hell, speed rated in single digits, and super expensive, but NOTHING, and I do mean NOTHING can beat them for off road grip, and I LOVE my Boggers more then any other tire out there, hands down bar none! If you want a good road rated tire with good off road capabilities, Patagonia M/T's or Cooper M/T's are an awesome option, the Patagonia run pretty quiet and if you run them carefully and air down when off road, they do amazing!
one thing about BF is the tire rotation... if you do normal x type with them they will separate on you had it happen... and they still had a LOT of tried on them! really screwed up the body work when they went! ya have to go front to rear ONLY with the ones I had...
There's a thread on here about the bf Goodrich tires failure, Dump those on anything and never buy another tire sold under bf Goodrich , I'm running coopers, doing just fine!
I've got 3 brands I'll run up here in the northlands on my trucks and suvs. Hankook and Sumitomo typically but have run Toyo AT3 are my fav. I don't overload my rigs. SUV will typically be on LT tires with XL load range for highway. The taco has load range C and the full size with load range E. I did run E on the SUV, that was a bumpy ass ride no sidewall flex whatsoever. But running through the mine rock waste piles and down the logging trails i didn't worry about sharp rocks/branches cutting a sidewall.
yeah i got a jack under the left side and had some one turn the steering wheel 1/2 left then right. cant tell ball joints that way but tie rod, sway bar bushings and frame to differential housing ( control bar?) were all tight,, but. the whole damn thing moves around. i suspect upper ball joints and the 4 frame links to diff housing bushings. i think they are proprietary to the quiggly. no matter when i get them off i can measure and find red urathane replacements. tires that cant go 55 mph,,, ffs. i think i can get coopers up here. firestone had some decent ones. this van is 90/10 highway/dirt and most 4x4 is icy winter highway. i dont need mud boogers. much to my ongoing disappointment it does not like tire chains either. puts the e4od trans in limp mode. maybe a 450/550 box passenger van so i can transfer bumpers,lights ect. i dunno.
the l/f tire that failed last and started this had 1500, maybe 2k on it and was not moved since new. lots of tread left.
my springs were both the same length. i did do front airbags,, i got rear airbags but quiggly overload spring blocks made install impossible with out changing blocks.
