did you check for play in the actual steering shaft? thats were my 3 inches of play came from....in the center there is a slipjoint that can get sloppy..(under the rubber boot)...also could be the universal joints in the shaft...just try to turn the shaft from under the hood at the firewall while reaching down to where it meets the box with the other and see if one moves before the other.....I fixed mine with jb weld and long metal shim but the correct fix would be one of the heavier duty replacements that run about $250
I have 35"mudders and no longer have the slop although are rams a famous for having a somewhat sloppy steering feel to them that 3 inches is waay to much...it drove me nuts the first two weeks I owned the truck....exhausting just going straight down the road.

Edit just reread a few posts back and saw that zman already covered this....sorry

 

is it as simple as taken the wheel off and putting it back on straight?

 

No i think you can pull apart where steering shaft meets gear box and move a few teeth and retighten

 

Hey everyone, I have a 1999 Dakota, will this fix work on the Dakota as well? I have several inches of play in my wheel. Thanks.

 

i did this to my truck and i tightened to much and when i would slightly turn the wheel eather way it would hold right or left pretty tight wasnt easy to drive so i ended up having to losen it up just a hair but it does work. i also put dual steering stabilizers on my truck and that helped alot with the play and how it drove down the road!

 

I read that if you drive it with it overtightened it wears the gearing out very fast in the box...I replaced my stabilizer and it didnt seem to have any effect at all....old one was totally shot and leaking...maybe the dual setup really does help with bigger wheels. I'll have to add it to my evergrowing list.

 

lol yea i hear ya on that list haha but i as of right now have 3 stabilizers on mine the stock 1 and i got the dual kit from topguncustomz.com its made by roughcountry i payed like 103 and some change shiped so it wasnt that big of a dent in the pocket so i went for it and it seemed tighter but i need to get everything properly adjusted

 

yes...

 

I have a 95 Ram 1500 RWD and I have just overhauled the whole front end,New top and bottom control arms, wheel bearing, brakes, springs, shocks and steering joints. I also fitted a new steering box because the old ond was getting noisy. Problem is now I have a lot of play in the steering and it wanders all over the road. Any advise how to fix this.

 

Need to find out where the slop is. If you bought a 'reman' stock steering box, that's where I would start. Most of them are worse than what you are replacing.