Currie front control arms vs stock: vibration and wobble

Hi all,

I've posted this same text over on Jeepforum. Both this board and that one have been invaluable to me over the years so here's a tiny bit of info given back:

This is a short post with info on my personal experience replacing the stock control arms on my TJ with Curry johnny joint arms. My goal was to kill, once and for all, a recurring case of death wobble.

My Jeep has a 2" OME lift & had picked up death wobble. Replacing the steering stabilizer masked it for a while but it recurred. I'd already replaced the track bar bushing; no joy. I agonized over Currie vs JKS after reading all the postings I could find. Lots of folks were concerned about transmitted vibrations with the Currie arms.

In my case I went from all clevite OEM bushings straight to the Currie arms, both upper and lower on the front axle. Of course, the two OEM bushings on the upper control arms are retained but the other six are now johnny joints. I drove it stock one day, all Currie the next day.

So my take on the change in transmitted vibration, harsher ride: effectively none. Handling changes: effectively none. Death wobble: gone.

I say "effectively none" instead of "none" because I'm being hyper-sensitive right now. *Maybe* certain bumps of exactly the right size feel crisper when I hit 'em. *Maybe* the Jeep's response to steering inputs is a little crisper. But honestly, both impressions could easily be put down to me thinking there'd *have* to be a noticeable difference. If I didn't know the arms were different my likely impression would be no change, except for the death wobble being gone.

Once, in the past, I replaced worn out stock motor mounts with poly motor mounts. There was a *huge* difference for the worse. Lesson learned, never again. So based on that I though the arms would be noticeable. I was willing to put up with it in order to not have to fix things twice. But now what I've got is only change for the better and I still shouldn't have to fix this twice.

Installation tips:
It worked best for me when I put the front up on jackstands and pulled the wheels.

The lowers were easy to remove. I used a ratchet strap when I needed to move the axle backwards and my winch to nudge the axle forwards when installing the new arms; I wasn't able to position it by hand.

The uppers.. not so easy. They're harder to reach. Get a really good drillbit for drilling out the stock bushings for the new Currie hardware. Single biggest tip: When doing the uppers install the axle end first *then* install the frame end. That made all the difference in the world and knowing it ahead of time would have saved me a *lot* of time.

Hope this info helps someone out. Thanks to mrblaine for his advice and help here a while back when making up my mind!

Mike