Gladiator ride characteristics, can I improve it?

1

13jkjunky

New member
I purchased my gladiator used in early July of this year. It’s a rubicon and had a 2.5” spacer lift already installed. I noticed how soft the suspension was, the jeep felt wiggly and gave me the bobble head feeling, which I know is a common characteristic of jeeps. A few weeks after I installed a Metalcloak 3.5” game changer lift and was hoping it would stiffen things up and eliminate or reduce that. Upon completion and initial driving of the lift, it was definitely more firm, planted and drove like a traditional vehicle with less wiggle and bobblehead feel. A weeks went by and I decided to change the ball joints, which led into doing the wheel hubs and front brakes too. The jeep seems more wiggly again, I don’t know how to describe it. But when going down the streets around me, which aren’t very flat, the jeep just kind of wiggles side to side back and forth and my head shakes all around. As I said I know it’s somewhat common but is there any way to eliminate or greatly reduce this? I was hoping the suspension would but it appears now that it’s settled and mostly broke in, that the suspension isn’t the answer. Just a characteristic of a solid axle jeep with front and rear track bars?
 
13jkjunky said:
I purchased my gladiator used in early July of this year. It’s a rubicon and had a 2.5” spacer lift already installed. I noticed how soft the suspension was, the jeep felt wiggly and gave me the bobble head feeling, which I know is a common characteristic of jeeps. A few weeks after I installed a Metalcloak 3.5” game changer lift and was hoping it would stiffen things up and eliminate or reduce that. Upon completion and initial driving of the lift, it was definitely more firm, planted and drove like a traditional vehicle with less wiggle and bobblehead feel. A weeks went by and I decided to change the ball joints, which led into doing the wheel hubs and front brakes too. The jeep seems more wiggly again, I don’t know how to describe it. But when going down the streets around me, which aren’t very flat, the jeep just kind of wiggles side to side back and forth and my head shakes all around. As I said I know it’s somewhat common but is there any way to eliminate or greatly reduce this? I was hoping the suspension would but it appears now that it’s settled and mostly broke in, that the suspension isn’t the answer. Just a characteristic of a solid axle jeep with front and rear track bars?
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ball joints take about 500 miles to break in depending on the brand
 
jeeeep said:
ball joints take about 500 miles to break in depending on the brand
Click to expand...
I don’t think that would cause my issue. It’s wiggly side to side. Weird feeling but felt exactly like it with the stock rubicon suspension. Just not stable and planted like I was hoping
 
So it’s bad again AFTER an upgrade is my understanding. If I may ask, why did you replace the ball joints in the first place? How many miles on the Jeep? What size tires? Wheeled often? Wheeled hard?

And there’s so much more but what I’m getting at is sometimes throwing money at the Jeep causes MORE problems than fixing them.
 
DirtHeadDavis said:
So it’s bad again AFTER an upgrade is my understanding. If I may ask, why did you replace the ball joints in the first place? How many miles on the Jeep? What size tires? Wheeled often? Wheeled hard?

And there’s so much more but what I’m getting at is sometimes throwing money at the Jeep causes MORE problems than fixing them.
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The Jeep improved after the lift. But shortly after went back to how it was prior. I assume after the new suspension broke in and softened up some.

The ball joints were replaced because i was getting a shake at driving speeds. The jeep has 50k miles with OEM ball joints, unknown history as I just purchased it 2 months ago. Came on 37’s, no idea how long it’s been on them or how it was wheeled.
 
WJCO said:
If you were happy after the lift, why did you decide to randomly change parts?
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The ride quality was degrading prior to the ball joint change. But ball joints shouldn’t affect ride quality. I’ve changed them many times on many different vehicles and ride quality is unaffected, steering can change momentarily with some memory steering while they brake in, but not the ride. The ball joints were original and there was no reason not to change them.
 
13jkjunky said:
The ride quality was degrading prior to the ball joint change. But ball joints shouldn’t affect ride quality. I’ve changed them many times on many different vehicles and ride quality is unaffected, steering can change momentarily with some memory steering while they brake in, but not the ride. The ball joints were original and there was no reason not to change them.
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Steering box loose ?
 
13jkjunky said:
I purchased my gladiator used in early July of this year. It’s a rubicon and had a 2.5” spacer lift already installed. I noticed how soft the suspension was, the jeep felt wiggly and gave me the bobble head feeling, which I know is a common characteristic of jeeps. A few weeks after I installed a Metalcloak 3.5” game changer lift and was hoping it would stiffen things up and eliminate or reduce that. Upon completion and initial driving of the lift, it was definitely more firm, planted and drove like a traditional vehicle with less wiggle and bobblehead feel. A weeks went by and I decided to change the ball joints, which led into doing the wheel hubs and front brakes too. The jeep seems more wiggly again, I don’t know how to describe it. But when going down the streets around me, which aren’t very flat, the jeep just kind of wiggles side to side back and forth and my head shakes all around. As I said I know it’s somewhat common but is there any way to eliminate or greatly reduce this? I was hoping the suspension would but it appears now that it’s settled and mostly broke in, that the suspension isn’t the answer. Just a characteristic of a solid axle jeep with front and rear track bars?
Click to expand...
MC shocks?
 
Are your drag link and track bar parallel? Sounds like body roll, maybe?

I flipped my drag link and didn’t raise my track bar, and my jeep rolled around a bit.

Welded a Synergy raised track bar bracket to the axle and the jeep immediately handled much better.

Also, make sure you clear the ducks off your dashboard. They make the jeep roll around like that.
 
Cousin Clyde said:
Are your drag link and track bar parallel? Sounds like body roll, maybe?

I flipped my drag link and didn’t raise my track bar, and my jeep rolled around a bit.

Welded a Synergy raised track bar bracket to the axle and the jeep immediately handled much better.

Also, make sure you clear the ducks off your dashboard. They make the jeep roll around like that.
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It could be described as body roll, but it doesn’t roll going around corners and such. It’s hard to explain what it does, but it just doesn’t feel planted. If the road isn’t flat every hump is transferred through the entire jeep as opposed to the suspension soaking it up. If say you drive over a slight hump on the front right side It rocks the whole the whole jeep to the left. The best way to put it I guess is that it rocks side to side a lot, and kind of wiggles side to side if not rocking.
 
13jkjunky said:
Why don’t you like MC springs or shocks?
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The better question is what does he use that he likes better. Everybody has there own preferences. I know several ppl that run MC and love it and others that prefer different set ups perhaps based on other factors that different lifts can provide. However there is great knowledge that can be shared on this site by ppl that actually use there Jeeps for what they were intended to do.
 
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