Death wobble...what a PITA

[neattouch648]

My truck started its death wobble a couple of months ago and then stopped. Over the past two weeks i had the engine out of it to rebuild it and now that i have the engine back in it, the death wobble is horrible. I can't get the truck up to 30 mph without it starting...i went down the checklist and this is what i've got so far Trac bar --> still good Tires --> Rotated (no difference) Pitman arm bearing --> still good All steering componenets --> no play, they seem fine Right wheel bearing --> BAD (replaced it but no difference made) (expensive cuz you can't just replace the bearing) Left wheel bearing --> Still good Steering box --> Lots of play (about 1/4 turn in the steering wheel before the truck responds) What else could it be? What i did notice however is that the 4 arms that hold the front axle in place was odd because on the bottom it has those round pieces of steel to i guess adjust the axle and they were bent and don't fit into the slots where they're supposed to. (i ground them down and straightened them out and put them in place so now it fits perfectly) but that also didn't make a difference HELP!!! what do i do?

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[zman17]

Try adjusting the box first. There is a write up in the DIY section.


But to me it sounds like you have a problem with the lower arms. If the round adjusters were bent , then I bet you have bad bushings. And you say you ground them down? Just cleaned them you mean? Those are for caster adjustment.

And btw,as far as the play in the steering wheel goes, you'll also want to check the intermediate shaft at the slip joint and see if there is play there too. And the small u-joints too for that matter.

[neattouch648]

i ground them down as in i used a bench grinder to make them smaller so that they would fit into where they were supposed to fit. I don't know what they did but i think they were the wrong ones installed.

Thanks for the advice, i'm going to check on that play in the steering box

i was reading an 8-LUG magazine and theres a kit you can buy that will support the bottom end of the steering box

its a nut with a rod attatched to it that screws onto the same place where the pitman arm attatches to the box, then a crossmember that attatches to the front swaybar mounts and then a bearing that fits over the rod on the nut to help stabilize it. It says its made especially for the death wobble in those trucks.
have you ever heard of that?
thanks

[meanwhitemopar]

well i have a bad wobble at around 40 to 45 and then it goes away and them from there it starts back up at around 75, so i checked things. i found that it is my outer wheel bearings, the U-Joints at the end of the axles, both fronts are bad. you might check those. just a thought and a good thing to replace anyway cause they are not that hard and only like 20 bucks for the good ones

[zman17]

By grinding those down you have changed the caster, which can also cause the wobble. The caster wants to be -4 ,IIRC. AS far as that stabilizer goes, I have heard of them, but you really need to also find out where the box is loose first. There is a little play in the pitman shaft which is normal(thats what that stabilizer corrects). But if you can turn the stub shaft back and forth and the pitman shaft doesn't move, you need to correctly adjust that.

[steve05ram360]

go get an alignment and have the tech add as much caster as he can. tell him to forget the spec, but make it drive straight with as much as possible. This will fix your problem. On my current ram I had the entire steering system loose & worn out from wheeling & still did not have the DW with the alignment set as mentioned above.

[neattouch648]

The place where the caster is adjusted, there is an upside down U shape to hold the round caster adjusters in place and allow you to change the caster of the axle. The rings however were way too big for the U shape and no longer fit into the U therefore causing the caster to change when i hit the brakes real hard (especially in reverse). By grinding the rings down to fit inside the U shape, it is much more stable now. I took it to an alignment shop and without trouble he changed it to max caster. That still didn't make a difference.
I saw on the DIY links that you can adjust the play in the steering box so i'm going to try and do that today and see if that helps.
The U-joints is one thing i haven't checked so thats a good idea i'll replace those today too and see if that helps

thanks for all the help!

[zique]

I'd agree with steve05, go get an alignment. I'm willing to bet when you take it in they will tell you that one or more of your TRE are shot. Welcome to a Dodge.

I rebuilt mine with the Luke's Link and haven't had a problem since, but the one alignment shop I have in town freaked out when they saw that one there and they couldn't get my alignment dialed in as well as I would have liked. They aren't the best shop though, but it's my only option.

[zique]

Oh yeah...you should definitely not have that much play in the steering box either (not that you don't already know that by now)

[zman17]

And there is no way you should have to grind the caster bolt adjustments down! Something is wrong,since you didn't have the prob before, you should not have it now!