alright guys, I need some help with this one. when im on the highway ( 50mph or over ) the steering has about 2 in of pay in it before the steering moves. I dont know what the hell could cause this. I checked everything. the steering shaft from the steering wheel to the pump is moves about an inch back in forth if i turn it by hand. the pitman arm feels tight. the steering stab. is totally shot. what can i do to fix this. it has to go for inspection soon and i want it to pass, ( not to meantion be safe) Like i said, i can really only tell theres something wrong at highway speeds. any help? thanks. [sm=confused06.gif]

 

Not much you can do. Its just crapy rack and pinion steering. Not the most modern, thats for sure

 

Um....2nd gen Rams don't have rack and pinion. At least none that I've seen.

It probably needs a steering gear/box rebuild.

You can try adjusting it per the TSB here: http://dodgeram.info/tsb/1997/19-10-97.htm

On mine, I adjusted the sector shaft for the steering gear. I snugged the nut down and backed it off 3-5mm of rotation. They're usually off 1.5in from the factory [:'(] It helped a little, but I still have a lot of slop. My steering box will need to be rebuilt when I have some free time.

 

If you think the steering stabilizer is shot, replace it. A Rancho one is less then $100 and it takes about an hour to do with some basic hand tools. If the bolts are really rusty like mine, hose them down in penetrating oil (wd-40) a couple times prior to removal of the bolts. I had tons of slop and replacing the steering stabilizer cleaned it up a bit and then fixing the track bar did some more, and adjusting the steering gear per Burning Rom's link helped the most.

 

heres the thing, putting on a new steering stab. is like just putting on a bandaid when you should have stickes. I dont want to fix it with that and have a bigger problem a month down the road because i couldnt tell there was something wrong.

 

Right it would be a bandaid, but it can help gather the steering back up until you get to adjusting the steering geer itself. I actually had to do a little over a full turn on my adjuster screw before IO gained a noticable difference in the steering. But I have 215,000 miles on the original steering geer.

 

does anyone know how much it cost to completely have it rebuild or buy a new one. i mean with my 35in tires. i think a new one may be the way to go if those will be to stress full on it. what do you think

 

IIRC, someone mentioned in a thread on another forum that a rebuild kit for the steering box was around $40 at a parts store.

I was quoted $80 when ordering the invdividual seals/gaskets/etc. from chryslerpartsdirect.com, so I'm not sure what the $40 rebuild kit includes. [>:]

 

You might want to look into this as a fix have not tried it yet but I am going to soon the wander drives me nuts and mine onlyt has 70k on it.
http://www.solidsteel.ca/DSS.htm