Bad front end....messey shorts!!!!

[AStewart]

05' 2500 4x4 11. 5k Drove to the Panthers game this weekend 75 mph coming off an overpass, road a little rough and... ... . Holy s--t. Front end started hopping and would not stop till about 55 mph. I counted four times there and back. My Butt puckers up every time I see a pot hole now. Does DC have a fix for this???

 

[Patriot_RAM]

It sounds to me like you've experienced the Death Wobble. Have you made any suspension changes? Do you have a leveling kit? How about 315 BFG tires? Have you had your alignment checked? How about the ball joins and track bar?



If you can provide some more info, we'll see what we can do to help!



Thanks!

 

[PGiannetto]

make sure you get it into dodge right away before your warranty runs out. that is not covered by the 7/70 plan.

 

[AStewart]

It is stock. It was an up and down movement it really did not move the steering wheel much. The weather has turned cool and tire pressure was down to 60psi.

 

[PGiannetto]

mine does not move the steerimg wheel eother. i thought it was up and down. it hapened once when i had a friend behind me & he said the tires were going side to side.

 

[Patriot_RAM]

When it happened to me, it felt like it was up and down -- couldn't feel much in the steering wheel. It felt somewhat like when you're dribbling a basketball very close to the ground -- but mine was an 8000+ pound basketball.



If your truck is stock, take it to a GOOD dealer -- have them check the track bar and ball joints for movement and/or wear. Some of these trucks have had those joints wear out at just a few thousand miles. I think I remember a couple that were less than a thousand miles. The other thing to have them check is the alignment -- specifically, check the caster and ensure that it is WELL within spec. These are a few things that seem to cause the DW on a stock truck from what I've read here and on other sites.



As far as the tires -- if they were filled to 60psi and they are load range E tires, I woudl personally doubt that it was the tires unless one of them was defective in some way. Are you running the stock Michelin or Rugged Trail tires, or an aftermarket tire? Also, what size and load range if it's aftermarket?



Thanks!

 

[Hoefler]

Mine is supposed to go in today for the DW, if the parts come in. I went in yesterday, they looked up a bulletin from STAR. It has 2 pages of things to check, replace, and adjust. Some of the things that are on there is; inspect ball joints, tie rod ends, control arm links, etc. . Replace nuts on ball joints, tie rod ends, and re-torque everything. Install new steering stabilizer, adjust or replace steering gear. Inflate tire to at least 50 psi. Realign whole front end to new specs from STAR. And a whole bunch more, there was specific instructions on what to do and the order to perform them in. The stabilizer is supposed to be done after all the inspections, re-torquing, alignment was done and if the customer still had the complaint after getting it back. But my dealer said that the DW wasn't cured until the stabilizer was done in his past experiences, so he is going to install it. I was told to expect it to take at least four hours to complete.



Mine has the bone stock suspension with the original Aimer/General tires inflated to 60 psi. I have 14,000 on it, my first occurrence was 12/01/05 and had it repeat 3 times since.

 

[TowPro]

times like this I wish I was still in the garage business. I would love to figure out what was causing this.



In the late 70's early 80's I was the apprentice for a guy who specialized in cold bending the twin I beam front ends on the ford trucks. Ford used to have this same problem, you would hit a pump and the front wheels would start to hop up and down (alternating sides). The only way to stop it was to let off the fuel and slow down!



What we found was to much castor was causing this. We would bend the I beams to bring camber back to specs which would also change castor some. Most times by the time we got a truck in it also needed replacment shocks so the combination of replacing anything loose or worn out, and bringing the alignment back into specs would fix the problem



I read another post here where they were finding one of the adjustable bushings on the lower control arm loose. He replaced the adjuster cams, got an alignment and the problem went away. Others also posted they were finding the same adjuster cam loose. If I recall, the cam bolt was available but the washer was on national backorder.