Hello everyone i bought a 97 1500 5.9l ram about 7 mths ago. Its got a lift kit on it not sure the hight( anyone know how to figure that out?)

It has 315 tires on it. I got some 285s to replace them so hopefully it rides better. But before i could put them on , my steering gear snapped off in the pitman arm. Was glad to have been in parking lot at work.

I was wondering what would cause it to snap. I dont have much Mech. Know how.

I hope with the smaller tires this want be a problem in the future.
Also i had slack in my steering wheel. I got my son to turn the wheel while i looked under the front. And the pitman arm would twist before the wheels ever moved.

sry for ugly post , i dont use forums much . thanks.

 

what it sounds like is that your power steering wasnt working and was putting more stress on the pitman arm than what was needed to turn them tires.

One possible way to see if there was a simple lift is to look on the rear axle. the blocks bolted to the axle are only 3 inches, stock. anymore than that and it has a lift

 

post a picture and im sure people can guess on the height just by looking.

 

No power steering will not cause anymore stress on a pitman arm.




I have actually heard of this exact thing happening to several other folks with 2nd gens. Oddly enough, not a single one of the people were traveling at a high rate of speed or had any damage occur (aside form a broken steering gear shaft). What it boils down to is that these steering gears are complete junk.

 

Thanks for the replies. Hope its just the gear. Since i working with a budget in the negative.