Hey all. New to this forum. Ive had my dakota since june 2016. Since i got it, ive had a bad steering problem. I literally have about one quarter turn of free play. I know what the issue is, but i cant find an answer. The rubber portion that connects the steering column and the rack is destroyed. If anybody knows a flaming river part or an alternate part number, it would be greatly appreciated. I havent had any luck with junk yards either. Ill get a pic and post it up in about 30 minutes. Thanks in advance. It is a 1993. Sorry. Meant to mention that before

 

 

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...g-shaft-2.html

Details and pics of my setup and Crazy's setup in that thread. Crazy's pics don't show for me, but my pics do. Let me know if you can't see them, I'll try and upload them to imgur.

We did the same thing except Crazy used a Borgeson vibration reducer to mimic the stock setup and I just used a Borgeson solid u-joint. Personally I can't feel any significant extra vibration but you experience may vary. And my exhaust vibrates the truck a bit anyways.
good luck

edit: I see you have a 2wd. I'm pretty sure the part numbers for everything are the same, but you may have to cut the shaft to a different length.

 

Thank you so much. Ive been searching for answers. Never really knew what the technical name for the parts

 

Do you think that i could get away with just replacing the joint with one of the borgeson units, or do i need to go through and make a new shaft completely?

 

Possibly but I don't think it's likely. First, you'd have to remove that old dampener/u-joint from the inner shaft (these are collapsible shafts). I haven't done that so I have no idea how far the inner shaft extends. Then you'd check to see if you can find a u-joint that is long enough and has a shaft-end diameter/shape matching the stock shaft. I'm not sure if those borgeson joints will do the job. And if you were successful at this (at least the way I'm thinking), then the shaft would no longer be collapsible which would be bad news in an accident. Remember, that's IF it can even be done, and I think it's unlikely. Personally I'd recommend just redoing the whole setup, I know it's a pretty penny and I certainly grimaced when I pressed the order button, but I don't regret it at all.

 

There are some cheaper option (ebay) than Borgeson available as well if you just take the specs from the borgeson stuff on that thread and google...but I decided against going cheap as I wanted safety and also to not have to do this job again for another 20 years.

 

After searching around online. I found that the prices were much lower on jegs.com. I ordered the vibration reducer that was mentioned before. two of the parts shipped today and the third will ship on the 9th. im looking forward to finally getting this steering issue fixed. thank you so much again. like i said before, i never knew what the actual name was for this so i never had any luck trying to find the solution.