Sooooo lately the past few weeks I've been hearing this low sounding knock in my front end when I ever go bumps and sort. The truck has 37K miles on it with 2.5" level and haven't had any changes/upgrades done yet. I went and took a peak underneath today to see what was going on and came up with this (see pictures below). It looks like to me I need to replace my tie rod ends and upper control arms or bushings? since the rubber piece has ruptured on both passenger and drivers side. I heard that some times that the sway bar link may need replacing if they are loose but they seemed to be OK. Are there any other parts that should be replaced while am at it?, only planning on keeping the truck another 30K miles or so. Another question I had was with the sway bar bushings, I read that its common to replace them with greaseable ones. Do you guys think its something I should do now? ..................I see the most common place to get parts is RockAuto, preferably MOOG?

Passenger Side Tie Rod End
2012-05-02_15-10-47_910.jpg
Passenger Side Upper Control Arm
2012-05-02_15-12-07_307.jpg
Passenger Side Sway Bar Link
2012-05-02_15-14-15_130.jpg
Sway Bar Bushing
2012-05-02_15-15-07_345.jpg
Driver Side Tie Rod End
2012-05-02_15-17-12_328.jpg
Driver Side Upper Control Arm
2012-05-02_15-18-23_29.jpg
Driver Side Sway Bar Link
2012-05-02_15-20-22_126.jpg

 

My wife's 2006 Durango's sway bar links looked fine too, just like yours, but they were not. She had the knocking noise over bumps, bugged her to no end.

We replaced the swar bar links in the front, and no more knocking noise.

 

Looks like you need a entire front end. Might as well do everything while you can. Those uppers are shot. With that boot like that, all that moisture got in there.

 

Damn man..I need to check mine out now too! haha but while you are at it just replace the stabilizer links..I am going to do mine too

 

& another one. did mine at 41000. this front end business seems to be like a "right of passage" deal with these trucks, almost like youre not a real man dak owner until youve done this.....i bet moog loves these trucks,lol.

 

Said that you have a 2.5" leveling kit? Looks to me like a lot of the angles are off to much, and that's most likely the cause of the problems (not that the front end would last all that long anyways). Just would recommend not going over 2", especially on a 4x4.

With that being said, I too agree that it looks like you need to replace most everything in the front end, I would go with Moog Upper and lower ball joints, (need to buy entire upper control arm for uppers) tie rod ends and swap bar end links.

Not sure how even Moog parts are going to hold up with the 2.5" spacer. Maybe someone else can chime in who has Moog parts and a leveling kit.

 

2" level does seems to be the rule of thumb max on the 4wd without causing problems from all the posts here concerning that.

i went with a 1.5 level just to be on the conservative side of that.so far,so good after a couple months.

 

I just had to do my front end at 51k... Heard the ball joint squeaking WAY before 51k... Just one day it got worse and never quit.

 

2.5" kit here. I have replaced both tie rod ends but that was because I destroyed them using a pickle fork to remove them when I installed the leveling kit. My ball joints and tie rods are no where near the angle yours are.

 

Ready for my second set of lower joints I'll just do upper and tierods all at the same time this time I think.