Opinions on RSK??

Swaan · Aug 12, 2016

Its extremely dangerous. I have a buddy with a newer dodge and he put a levling kit in the front. Thats all it took to induce death wobble. His truck shook so bad one time the one of the straps that holds his fuel tank up in place actually snapped.
That leveling kit took about 2-3 degrees of caster out and it was a death wobble machine untill he had it aligned again.

tc.hajagos · Aug 12, 2016

freddie did you do a solid axle swap on your ccsb? Only asking because I believe that TTB uses a stiffer spring than solid axle due to the leverage the beams create.

Death wobble is most of the time caused by incorrect caster. The bottom ball joint should sit ahead of the upper ball joint. This also helps the wheels return to center and track straight. A lot of times people say that replacing the tie rods ect will fix their death wobble but usually this is just a bandaid.

freddie · Aug 12, 2016

Yep, I have a Dana 60 with a 2.25" RSK kit and Super Duty springs. I am checking my caster angle tonight. THanks all!!

Swaan · Aug 12, 2016

I bet your axle is sitting flat.

01pwrstkr · Aug 12, 2016

Swaan said:
Its extremely dangerous. I have a buddy with a newer dodge and he put a levling kit in the front. Thats all it took to induce death wobble. His truck shook so bad one time the one of the straps that holds his fuel tank up in place actually snapped.
That leveling kit took about 2-3 degrees of caster out and it was a death wobble machine untill he had it aligned again.

2 years ago on the 4th of July my wife and I bought a 08 jeep wrangler 2 door. Was completely stock down to the tire size. Only had 30k miles on it.

Drove good for a month or so and then she started telling me it was vibrating/shaking real bad. I drove it for a couple weeks and it drove perfect. From a crawl to 100mph it was smooth. She drove it for a few days and said it was still doing it. I thought she was crazy. Lol.

So I started driving it again. Nothing for a while and then one day on a road I traveled almost daily it almost made me need new underwear! Lol. Then it got to where it would do it 10 times a day or may not for weeks. On the same roads. I couldn't figure out what caused it. Took it to a few shops and no one could figure out a cause. Finally we ended up trading it in for something else.

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Coueshunter · Aug 12, 2016

Track bar was not tight enough

bluedge8 · Aug 13, 2016

That is how I found/fixed my death wobble. I had replaced everything in the front end,,,,, except the track bar, totally missed it. and it still had the death wobble. When I pulled it out and installed the PMF adjustable track bar, it never did it again. BTW, it only did it with 35's on, never did it with my 285's.

Swaan · Aug 13, 2016

If caster is set right you dont even need a track bar.
Lots leaf sprung vehicles dont even have track bars .

Caster is the cause

gnxtc2 · Aug 13, 2016

Swaan said:
If caster is set right you dont even need a track bar.
Lots leaf sprung vehicles dont even have track bars .

Caster is the cause

What alignment specs should one shoot for? Factory or something different? Caster, camber, toe?

Billy T.
[email protected]

gnxtc2 · Aug 13, 2016

Swaan said:
You dont have enough caster on your front axle. You need tapered wedges under your spring pack to tilt your axle back. Death wooble is 99% a result of not enough caster.

Ever wonder why the front wheels on a shopping cart do the funky chicken all the time . No caster. Your truck is essentially doing the same thing.

Steering damper is not a fix .

My truck rolls on 35s with a rsk and super duty Springs.
I dont run a steering stabilizer and i can cruise 70-80 mph with 1 finger on the wheel, drives like a Lexus.
But im prob running 5 or 6 degrees caster.

Having a high amount of caster, the truck is going to be a b!tch to turn. On my race car, I have 7°-8° of caster and it doesn't want to turn even with front skinnies; I can imagine with truck tires.

I'm running 4.5° of caster. As an experiment

oke: I took off the trac bar and went for a ride. All was well until I high a bump doing 45 mph.....holy sh!t I couldn't even hold the steering wheel in my hand. I had to slow down for it to stop. Needless to say, I drove home real cautiously and put the trac bar back on.....no more death wobble.

Billy T.
[email protected]

Swaan · Aug 13, 2016

Dont quote me but i think spec is 3 -5 degrees caster.i leave that up to my alignment shop with a lifted truck running on big tires i always run a few more degrees over stock.
I agree with you that to much can make it steer heavy , there is a happy medium thou. My truck turns fine.

I find some rsk kits dont take caster into account and you end up with a front axle thats amost flat.
My back brackets are drop down quite far as to get the front axle to roll back .

As far as the track bar goes maybe i should be more specific. I should of said some leaf spring vehicles dont even run a track bar. But our trucks on a rsk and soft super duty 2 leafs should still run a track bar.

freddie · Jan 3, 2017

Guess I never replied to this thread... And I never resolved the issue. The truck still sucks to drive, its dangerous. I wanted to check my caster angle. I guess I forgot to check my floor but I would assume it is damn close to 0.

Do you guys think that measuring off of the bottom of the lower ball joint would be sufficient for measuring caster? I checked and I got 4.8-4.9 degrees on my driver side, and 5.3 degrees on my passenger side. I may go back out in a few and check to verify the floor is 0.0

I plan to set caster via shims, get it aligned and go from there. I have Pit Bull Rockers on order and Ill need a good alignment for them anyways. If the truck still acts funny than I thought about the Carrick Customs high steer kit, and or the Redhead steering box. I haven't determined the condition of my steering box yet.

freddie · Jan 4, 2017

Disregard. Looks like I need to pull the knuckle to measure caster.

Garbage_Mechanic · Jan 4, 2017

Why pull the knuckle? Your set up in the photo should work just fine.

superpsd · Jan 5, 2017

Any have have checked all the steering gear for slop? Might want to find a reputable shop to set the alignment?

I installed a 5" Sky RSK keeping the TTB and have a good known shop align it. No one issue and it rides great.

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Garbage_Mechanic · Jan 5, 2017

superpsd said:
Any have have checked all the steering gear for slop? Might want to find a reputable shop to set the alignment?

I installed a 5" Sky RSK keeping the TTB and have a good known shop align it. No one issue and it rides great.

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Superchargers and lifted TTB with RSK, you do like to go against the grain don't you? I like it. Don't follow the herd.

superpsd · Jan 5, 2017

Well I kept a look out for D60s for some time and everyone wanted top dollar for garbage worn out axles. My ball joints were in good shape and I had the drop brackets for the pivots laying around that I paid barely nothing for off ebay. I went with the RSK as if I do want to someday go D60 it will bolt right up to the RSK of course. I also have had no alignment/tire wear issues that many have with the crap TTB but I may just be lucky Idk. Handles well so far but I need to upgrade to some fox shocks. I'm still running basic Monroe shocks all stretched out

Garbage_Mechanic · Jan 6, 2017

Yep, I got lucky and got the one that is under the 91 for free from work, I did hunt up later knuckles for it and completely rebuild it but still maybe have $600 in it 10 years ago. The one under the 96 I got off Car-Part.com for $600 about 04, it had about 50k miles but needed gone through, mostly due rust from sitting outside. Probably have $600 getting that one installed but no one issue for 100k miles since!

How do you like your IDI Performance T4 mount? Comparison to Irate and Carson Stauffer?

superpsd · Jan 6, 2017

I used his kit because I'm keeping keeping the mechanical pump and his kit was about the only kit that drains oil back to the oem location. The kit was pricey in comparison to Irate or Carson so I would have went with one of those kits for the money if I was going strictly electric. I will be adding a SD pump in tandem to boost fuel pressure under higher demand. IDI is only a few minutes away as well so I don't mind supporting local shops and I was able to stop by check the kit out mocked up on an engine and went with it.

Hope you figure your death wobble out. I assume you checked for any wheel bearing slop?

Garbage_Mechanic · Jan 6, 2017

"Hope you figure your death wobble out. I assume you checked for any wheel bearing slop?"

I have never has so much as a twitch out of either of mine and neither has ever been to an alignment shop. Perfectly even tire wear, got about 50k miles out of last set of tires.