I have a 2007 Dodge Dakota 3.7 Quad Cab 2WD. A lot of my suspension and steering components are bad or going bad. It started with noticing my steering felt slightly loose. Next it progressed to a thumbing/knocking noise that seems to be coming from the front driver's side tire. I can feel it in the floor board, but really only where i naturally rest my left foot. The knocking in the floor board and the sound coming from the tire have gotten really bad. I'm going to try and order everything i have found so far early next week. So far I have found...rack & pinion mounting bushings almost not existent, Sway bar bushings (front and rear), Sway bar end links(rear)/ Sway bar bushings(front, pulled the boot back which was still in good shape and the grease inside was not gritty but smooth feeling like it should be), Inner tie rod on passenger side, all shocks and struts(also strut mounts), both front wheel hubs, and drive shaft center support. With the front end off the ground or on the ground I cannot see or hear any play in the upper and lower ball joints. Driver's side brake pads move freely on the slide pins/bolts as they should. Passenger side won't move(this is with the pads still on the rotor. Both tie rod ends look fairly new as they still have the black paint on them with minimum rust and no play. all ball joints and tie rod ends' boots look great. Front end links, whoever put the replacements on, the idiot over tightened them on the upper end almost flattening the rubber bushings. Neither of the wheel hubs show any play, but have a clicking noise at a certain spot when turned by hand. I can hear the passenger side growling while driving.

As for the knocking/ thumbing noise and feeling it is more pronounced at 35 mph. It doesn't really start showing until 20 mph and then again decreases above 40 mph but can still be heard and felt.

Yesterday i found that my differential was oily and dirty where it's connected to the drive shaft, but doesn't look to be fresh oil. I'm sure the pinion seal needs replacing. It didn't have any play in the yolk indicating bearing failure. It appears that someone has already been in there because the head of the bolts on the yolk have wear marks on them. I found this same thing on the yolk on the transmission end. But it seemed more of a consistency of grease and there is play in that yolk.

Last night when i got home for some reason i left the truck in Drive and held the brake down while slightly raising the rpms from idle about 200 rpms. I could hear a knocking noise coming from the floorboard but couldn't hear it outside the truck. when doing this the check engine light came on and today the code said misfire on cylinder 6. So i bought a spark plug. This same code came up less than 6 months ago and i'm pretty sure on the same cylinder at which time i replaced all plugs. Today the plug looked like the cylinder was lean. The electrode was light brown/ white in areas and worn. No wetness at all. replaced it and still have the knocking. Could the knocking be just the engine/transmission trying to overcome the brakes?

Sorry for the long post but i have a lot going on here.

 

How many miles on the truck? These factory suspension parts are junk if you are going to replace them get Moog Problem solver series they are greaseable and will last a lot longer then factory. Rockauto is a good place to start. As far as missfire did you try and move coil to another cylinder see if missfire moves along with it could be coil pak as well as plug or injector.

 

124,000 miles...only Moog part i have found on the truck is the Sway Bar End Links and they are greaseable. On those I believe the ball joint is still good because the grease inside isn't gritty. Plus i can't find any play on that end. Only problem with them is the bushings at the sway bar end and only because whoever installed them badly over tightened the nut smashing the bushings to where they were almost useless. Yeah i made my whole parts listing from Rockauto. Compared it to one of the parts store in town and Rockauto was $100 cheaper even with shipping. I believe the tie rod ends have also been replaced as i stated they still have the black painting and hardly rust with good boots. Possibly the ball joints have been replaced because the boots on them are in great shape, but they aren't greaseable. Not seeing any other signs of parts being replaced as far as suspension and steering parts go. I didn't think about moving the coil to another plug and see if it causes the same condition. I guess i am not use to this style and still use to the plug wires, where a certain wire has to be on a certain plug to fire correctly. If it shows up again I will try that. Would the coil being bad cause a hotter ignition (wording) making it appear that cylinder was running lean?

 

Usually it doesn't fire properly causing less fuel burnt.

 

what kind of plugs did you get and what type of gas are you running? I'm thinking there is carbon built up and it just needs a good cleaning. might have to remove the throttle body and check to see how dirty it is on the inside. the knocking could be crap gas, another thing. check your tail pipe to see how mush pressure you have coming out, a clogged convertor will wreak havoc or a bad downstream 02 sensor

 

There are, (on my 2006) two spline connectors in the steering shaft leading to the firewall on the engine side. These were both loose on mine, requiring just a couple of small wreches 12mm I think to snug up. That took the play out of my steering wheel.

 

When I did mine last year, I just went with one of those kits where the retailer assembled everything "Complete front end kit". I saw plenty of those rack bushings when I was looking online. My rebuilt rack came with new ones, so was no need to order those.