I have a 99 2500 4wd that will pull either left or right when braking. When I drive to work in the morning it isn't bad if its there at all but as soon as I’ve driven for 5+ minutes the truck will pull left or right (depending on how it feels that day I guess) when I brake, it’s pretty sudden if you brake hard and while it can be overcome with the steering if your not paying attention it will pull you across lanes. As you can imagine this isn’t great when pulling trailers too.

Ive replaced all of the front brake system, rotors, calipers, pads, brake fluid flushed and those flexible hoses replaced. Track bar was loose so I replaced that, rear brakes look fine too. Not to mention that this problem doesn’t happen if I’m rolling down the road and apply the parking brake.

I’m not super familiar with these trucks though I can work on anything but I don’t want to dump anymore money than necessary into it. I just need some help with what to look for or replace next.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

Given that the truck you have is over 25 years old, I'd be checking for worn/loose front suspension components quite closely. Things like upper and lower ball joints, tie rod ends, steering stabilizer and wheel bearings. I'd also check front tire condition, along with inflation (are both tires inflated correctly, are the same PSI and balanced correctly?). Is the truck in 4WD when these issues occur?

 

Yeah, track bar was my first thought but OP says it's been replaced.

So you're down to the usual suspects of TREs and ball joints. How is the steering box play when driving straight?

I'd also look at control arm bushings, and grab the wheels at 12 and 6 to check for wheel bearing play.

You could also have a worn u-joint at the knuckle. I've had a really tight one act like a weak p/s pump because it put up such a fight. Spin your wheels when straight ahead, then turn full lock and see if one side is noticeably more difficult to spin.

Getting worse after driving kinda suggests a bearing issue, so be extra vigilant on wheel bearings and u-joints. An IR temp gun or thermal imager might help you see differences.

If all that is OK I'd wonder about alignment

Let us know what happens!

 

For sure, old truck and almost 200,000 miles I'm fully expecting to do a full front end eventually. I do remember checking that steering stabilizer and remember that being good (I think a previous owner replaced that at some point.) Tires are inflated to the same psi and they are newer, no weird tread wear or anything as of yet too, stock size as well. The old tires didn't have weird wear either which is what is throwing me off. In my mind bad suspension usually creates bad wear. I will double check everything though, wheel bearings and ball joints I haven't checked as well so I will give those a look over as well. Thank you for the response.

 

Steering has a the slightest play to it but nothing crazy, I have had vehicles with lots worse. Never had a Dodge though so maybe that slight play could be part of it? Anyways I will definitely check those wheel bearings and never thought of checking the u-joints, I will run that test you mentioned tonight and see what I can find. I do have an IR gun when I was thinking it was a brake issue but never thought to check wheel bearings with it. I will also be doing that when I drive it again. Thank you for the response.

 

Most of these trucks have horrendous play in the box so I imagine you're OK there.

I had a 3/4T GMT800 with a sloppy steering box and in 4WD when accelerating it'd dart left and right as the front wheels under power did not have sufficient guidance.

I was trying to imagine a similar scenario that might cause your symptoms, but you'd be virtually the only case because usually a worn steering box will allow wander but not a random PULL as you describe in 2wd.

I was just trying to find a thread we could keep pulling on to get to the root cause.

 

Given the odd symptoms you're having with your vintage truck, I'd suggest taking it to a local high quality front end shop to have them take a look at it and provide you with a diagnosis based on the symptoms you're describing. This approach should cut out on the guesswork, as they should be able to tell you what's going on.

When I purchased my used vintage truck several years ago, I experienced the phenomenon called "death wobble", which caused me to stop everything and rebuild the truck's entire front suspension (including the steering gearbox - Borgeson was an available replacement at that time) and get a high quality front end alignment. I've had no front end/steering/braking issues since.

 

It's sloppy parts. Not like there aren't a lot of parts under there..... Most likely the box itself though, given what you are experiencing. Unfortunately, I don't think borgeson makes boxes for our trucks any more, and redhead seems to be having some quality issues.....

 

lift one front tire off the ground and move the wheel. Do the same to the other side. It probably won't be hard to find the slop. I know my drag link was replaced somewhere around 125-150K. I would bet yours has slop.