Hey guys, I am having 2 steering issues with my 2003 1500 rwd ram:

1. At slow speeds (ie. in a parking lot) when turning left i get high frequency vibrations sent into my steering wheel. It's not necessary noisy but is rather felt as a pulsing. This does not happen at speeds greater than 30 kph.

2. The truck veers/juts sideways almost uncontrollably over bumps at highway speeds. This problem is especially bad on bridge expansion joints, gravel roads, or in turns. The truck pulls to the right as well (not majorly but a steady hand is needed to keep it straight on the highway.

Things I have replaced: both front wheel bearings, front right caliper, outer tie rod ends, steering rack (my mopar one binded and the shop put in a reman, i doubt the quality is there though as these problems seemed to have gotten worse after the rack replacement). The truck was apparently aligned with the tie rod end replacements but i am starting to doubt that too.

So what could be causing both issues above? The ball joints seemed tight when I put a snipe under the front wheels but I haven't got them professionally checked. Is my alignment just fudged?

Thanks

 

I would make sure your wheel bearing assembly is not loose maybe the bolts did not get tighten down well. Are your shocks in good shape the front end might be bouncing around too much on the bumps.

 

The wheel bearing assembly should be tight. I put blue thread lock on the bolts and torqued to 135 ft lbs. They are timken units. What would be a good way to test the shocks? They are the originals but dont squeek?

 

The truck veering when hitting bumps could very well be a caster issue

 

^^^ agreed. I rebuilt my front end and went to have it aligned. They said that everything was perfect and it passed all the alignment tests on the rack. I knew that had to be wrong because I put it back together with no alignment tools or measurement's. I drove it for about 2 days and it was doing everything as you describe. I took it to a different shop and they said it was WAY off.They did it right and started driving right.

 

Check wheel balance and alignment. I had a bad bad shimmy and it was a combination of both. There's still this one section of road here in town I avoid. It's on the downward side of a hill. There's a manhole cover that's recessed in the street, and just past that is a bump in the road. When you hit it the manhole cover sends your wheels one way, then the bump another, and by time you hit the bump, the cover is sending your BACK wheels somewhere else.

 

I have a steering alignment scheduled for next week. I will let everyone know of the shop's findings when checking for worn parts and whether an alignment ends up being the cure.

I would like to add one more behaviour to the list of steering woes. The truck wanders when under high throttle (which is actually quite scary). The steering gets a very light feel and any rut in the road seems to cause the truck to veer way off course under power. The rear end of the truck seems to scoot to the side from right under you while this is happening. Anyone else experience this type of behaviour and had a fix for it?

 

i will def be following this thread. I have the same issues.

 

So I have received the truck back from the shop and all is well! Turns out the POS shop that did the steering rack replacement fudged the alignment up HARD. So bad in fact the technician this time around couldn't even get a baseline reading with the alignment machine. He had to mess around with it just to get a starting point lol. A combination of severe toe out and camber out on one wheel caused the truck to pull to the right and veer unpredictably on bumps. Oddly enough I could not tell with my eyes that the alignment was that bad.

Oh the first problem where I get high frequency shudders in the steering wheel on left turns at parking lot speeds still persists. Anyone know what that could be from? Would irregular wear on the right (outside steering tire in this case) from the poor camber setting over 10000 km cause this?

 

yes odd wear on a tire can cause problems like that but it would usually be present at higher speeds....

I think that the remanufactured rack you have in there is prolly the culprit... the reman units are trash... the mopar units are definitely better.

If the problem gets worse I'd replace the rack again with a new Mopar unit and make sure you get the warranty on it.