Im new here and dont know how to start my own thread. Anyways, have a 2002 Dodge Ram 1500. A few days ago while driving it lost all power and shut off. Had to jump battery to get it home. Now when you start it(battery was dead again next moring-had to put on charger overnight again) it shakes like crazy. While sitting in the driveway if I push the gas over 2000rpm the shaking will stop. Tried to drive it and it shakes like crazy and wont go over 25mph. When I would take my foot off the gas I would lose all power and it would die. To get it to start I would have to give it a ton of gas. Also, when driving it sounds like water sloshing on the passenger side of the engine when I turn the corner. Had to fill up coolant twice in past month.
Any ideas??????????

 

My 1/2 ton 07 has the same breaking/shimmy issue. The harder I break, the harder the shimmy. It is an annoyance, but the pads are still plenty good. On a similar note I had the true "death wobble" on a 79 bronco after lifting it up 4 inches. I put the drop track bar bracket on and when I hit a slight bump above 40 that truck would shake violently. It turned out the added hight on the bolt in bracket was allowing the axle to have a slight side to side movement because as the axle dropped the track bar would pull it over a little. The weak bracket was a poor design for the stresses added with a lift. Needless to say I took it off and delt with one tire sticking out a little more then the other.

 

Waynofish, You should definitely check your rotors, that sounds like your culprit.

 

Well bushings are in. Getting it aligned tomorrow, I will update with the results. So far so good.

 

after a long drive today I am happy to report that the shimmy while braking is gone. So the bushings were my culprit, but they where not fun to replace I can tell you that.

 

there is some great information here, i have the same braking problems. (body shakes when breaking at any speed). i was lead to believe my rotors were warped, so i purchase some nice slotted and dimpled and spent a Saturday changing the rotors with no great improvement. (I have to say that it did help on stopping distance). I was going to check shocks, but after reading this thread, i'm going to check the front suspension.

 

I was glad to find the TSB on the subject, its still riding good. I was told everything in the front suspension was good by multiple shops, but I changed out the brushing anyway.

 

Rear rotor warp can cause shimmying as well. Most guys automatically think of front rotors as the only contributors, but rear rotors need to be diagnosed as well!!
Also, worn tierod ends, either innor/outer can cause braking shimmy.

 

Follow up. Checked the front suspension yesterday and everything feels tight (even the steering). Going back to the shocks as the problem and will keep looking on this forum for other possibilities as to where the body shake is originating from.

 

Just pulled a rear rotor so I could change a stud and was shocked by how flimsy the rotor feels. Though the pads look plenty good the rotor deffinatly has a noticible edge where it was worn down. I have only 43,000 miles but I'm sure the 35's since 5000 miles hasn't helped.
I would think that would have to be my shimmy problem. I was thinking before to possibly change just the front ones but after seeing this I would do all 4. Right now I still have life on the pads so I have some time to research any benafits to going ceramic when I do change. As it sits now, I need a bigger hammer for the stud (the claw hammer wasn't cutting it) so I put everything back on with the new tires and will try to fix the stud again this week.
Looks like it will be an easy enough change when I do replace the rotors/pads. Or did I just add a day by mentioning that?