Steering slop an more headaches

[EDankievitch]

So for the past year I’ve been fighting with a truck that just wants to wonder. A little back story I had the death wobble really really bad last year. So bad that it destroyed the new track bar that I had just installed. The cause ended up being a totally wasted set of XRF million million warranty ball joints. They were quick to ship when I bought them new then they dropped off the face of the world when I tried to collect on the warranty.

So new ball joints installed from EMF. Death wobble cured. But truck had a disconnected feel. I replaced the Drag link and cross over bar. I destroyed the Moog one. It was better but still not right. That’s when I found the track bar also destroyed. That last wobble was really really bad. I almost wrecked the truck. New Senergy track bar and it drove better still. But still not right.
I found the steering box and steering shaft had a lot of play. I reset the backlash on the steering box and installed the steering shaft bushings that EMF supplied but I still had almost 3/4” worth of slop in the steering shaft.
Flash forward to today. I removed the steering column from the truck and found the CV joint in the tilt wheel assembly destroyed. There are nylon bushings inside. They are totally smashed out. The slop is between the pins and housing. And are not replaceable. I never use the tilt feature. For now I’ve filled the CV joint with epoxy as I need the truck. No more steering slop. All nice and tight. A new replacement Column is in my future.
Here is the headaches I now have a AirBag warning lamp and my traction control lamp is also lit. My code reader shows No codes. I’ll be heading down to my favorite dealer in the morning to see what Got Screwed up.
I can live with out the airbag but Cruise control is also not working. But it’s working for fast idle. Only thing I think I could have screwed up is the clock spring. But I was very careful not to turn the Wheel more than half a turn while it was out of the truck....
I know without codes it’s hard to come up with a fix....

 

[EDankievitch]

Update I think I trashed the clock spring now nothing on the steering wheel works....

 

[crazy jerry]

can you give a recap of everything pertinant ? year and model. odo mileage and conditions you drive in. is there any modification to the drivetrain other than the new parts mentioned earlier.

assuming you have 14+. we also have the same model trucks at work on the railroad. you can imagine the roads they see and the drivers that abuse them. still ive not heard any complaints about problems like youve mentioned. theyve held up very well for us

about the new parts that were installed. i feel oe stuff is fine for most people, as ive seen it hold up well on our work trucks. aftermarket can be sketchy , theres alot of junk out there. me personally, regarding aftermarket, emf joints is likely the only ones i would bother using. as for aftermarket trackbars, ive no experience with carli so thuren is the only one i would use. synergy drag link is a hefty DOM tubing, far stiffer and stronger in bending than oe but i havent been able to find any info on the joints it uses but theyre fine so far in the short term

 

[EDankievitch]

My truck is a 2013 4x4. It has the older ( last year for) 5 link suspension. I’m running only slightly larger 295-70-18 tires. Along with a set of Spyntec free wheeling hubs. I only had given the XRF ball joints a shot because of their warranty. Had I had the money at the time there would have been a set of Carli’s in her. This was before EMF was available. Today I will only install EMF. Not that Carli’s are bad I just feel that EMF leapfrogged them. I would have done the Senergy Steering linkage kit but it was on back order at the time. The factory kit really is not that bad. I had one last well over 125k miles in my 05.
The truck now has 144k miles on it. Most on very poor New York pot holed roads. With a few over sized Speed tables tossed in to boot.The last time I had the death wobble it was bad. I had it a few times before I found the ball joints bad. In the truck they tested good very little measurable play. That’s why I didn’t do them first. I replaced everything else. It would be better then a bump would set it off. The last one wouldn’t stop. I had all I could do to get the truck off the highway and stopped. I wrecked a lot of new parts that day.

 

[crazy jerry]

ok its '13. well i have no personal experience with pre 14 trucks but i know nearly everything was beefed up 14+. likely dodge saw the writing on the wall perhaps. still im sure it would be a solid truck with top qaulity parts. buy once cry once as they say. i just spent $1500 on a hypertherm plasma cutter. sure i could of bought lesser machines for $700 but i have no patience for cheap chinese junk

 

[EDankievitch]

So New Steering Column and New Clock spring. Everything is back to normal. The truck actually drives like a new truck again. Long journey to get here. That death wobble really did a lot of damage. Ok I wrecked the clock spring....
But quote an old song
What a long strange trip it’s been...