Off Roading Strength of front end?

[john79gmc]

I never owned a Dodge truck, but am considering getting a 2003, 3500HD Quad cab, (still not sure on the power plant as yet).

My question is, how strong is the Dodge front end, which uses the trailing links to hold the front axel in place, versus a truck that has leaf spring front end?

I noticed on a 2002 Dodge, the trailing links are made of what looks like stamped heavy gage sheet metal with 3 sides.

The 2003 I looked at had heavy gage sheet metal in a box design.

How does the Dodge hold up in the off road environment?



Thanks,

John

 

[Paul Herioux]

John,

You're never going to beat the strength and reliability of a leaf spring setup. On the other hand the 4 link setup on the front of the 2nd & 3rd gens gives a much nicer ride and a whole lot less wheel hop. If Dodge actually got smart and boxed the control arms it should be a fairly strong setup. When I was working as a dealer tech, I saw a lot of 2nd gens that developed pulling and wandering conditions after be used hard. I believe most of this was caused by the lack of rigidity in the stamped, u-shaped control arms.

I guess it all boils down to whether you want to take 9 months to build an indestructible truck or buy a near indestructible truck and have the dealer fix it occasionally.

JM2C,

Paul

 

[SOOT]

I have taken my Mom's truck (see sig) through some pretty wild stuff and have had NO front end problems, other then alignment, it only weighs about 7600lbs. So ya they are very tough.

 

[cmccracken]

I bent the lower passenger side link bouncing over some rough stuff. Still drives ok, so alignment isn't screwed up too much. Will be putting on a lift kit w/ new links in the next or so, so I'm not too worried. I agree that boxing the links would increase strength immensely. I have been considering pulling my lower links off, straightening them and welding on some 3/16 bar stock to the bottom. It should handle bouncing off big rocks and strengthen the links alot. To put my damage into perspective, I also did quite a bit of damage to my rocker panels, embedded my tailpipe into the truck bed, put a few tennis ball size dents in the muffler, mangled the t-case crossmember, and dented the driveshaft enough that I couldn't drive over 55 without severe vibration... most are fixed. I don't think the front end is a weakness except for direct impact with big-ass-rocks. Sure rides nice, though. My buddy has a fairly similar early 90's Ram with leafs, and it feels like is has no suspension at all. My truck's a Cadillac in comparison.