Hey ,
06/06/2018 and this thread is still extremely useful, saving who knows how many of us, money, time and the hassle of having to go to the dealership for the same poorly designed part or worse yet pay the dealership to repair my/our trucks.

I have 2004 Ram 1500 Quad Cab 4x4 Hemi SLT+ that my father purchased new in 04 (went with him to pick her out, only had 7 or 8 miles on it, had just came in that day, he fell in love, I fell in love with the truck). Fast forward the truck has been babied and was will to me in 2010 after my father's passing. I currently have 69,700 miles on it and yesterday I shifted into 4H on a dirt/gravel road at the back of my property when I started to slip a bit, went to shift her back into 2WD, she shifted back into 2H but then I felt no resistance, shifter just moved freely. Checked underneath and sure enough the linkage came off and was on the ground. I looked online at factory OEM replacements, didn't like what I was seeing from a price standpoint or engineering view. I found this thread and thought now that is a heavy duty engineered shift linkage ! I followed the thread, I ended up going with the dual linkage designs posted in later comments.

The thread is still useful! Everything was spot on except for the locations of a few of the parts as they have completed (many I am sure) planogram (product placement) changes. The parts cost me $12.86 and work absolutely perfectly !

I just wanted to say " THANK YOU " for your post and all those who posted successful installations after. Helped this guy out a lot.

 

Thank you for the Lowes Part #'s & Instructions! I was able to get my 4X4 shifter back up and running!

 

Keeping this forum going....just had the linkage drop out issue - of course during a big snowstorm in the Northeast. The bushing on one side had corroded and the rod dropped out...rod was still there attached at the other bracket but years of snowy roads & road salt rusted the sh*t out of it. I was at first tempted to do this diy hardware fix but decided against it since it wouldn't be long before conditions here rusted everything solid (I guess that's why they used rubber/poly bushings in the design). Someone here or in another thread said the rust wouldn't be an issue as it would only tighten things up but I don't think that's right. The rod still needs to move or pivot slightly when the shifter is moved thru its travel points and if the metal bolts/washers/parts freeze with rust the shifter may become immovable. You guys down south and not in constant winter snow/salt conditions would be ok with no issues I'm sure but I'd caution guys in my type of situation not to be so quick to do this fix.

While I could have used the old rod (still sturdy by pitted and chucks of rust peeling off) I found a guy on Ebay selling the OEM Mopar rod for $12 (closeout price) and the OEM bushings for cheap. I decided to get the new rod & bushings (4 pack) and in total it was less than $30 and w/ free shipping.

 

[QUOTE=pirefyro;2693556]Back in November of 2011, while I was in the process of changing my oil, I discovered the shift linkage between the lever and my transfer case on my 2005 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 had fallen off. Upon looking into it, I found the dealership fix would be $40 for parts and I can install them myself. Since the grommets wore out once, I am sure they would do so in the future. Not wanting to do this again, I began looking for a permanent fix. In searching the internet, I came to dodgeforums.com and found many threads with the same issue. I found a fix by one of the users on this site, but it involved shaping a piece of steel to fit, so it was put on the back burner until I found someone with the tools to shape the metal or found a different fix. Today, 01/14/2012, I found a way to fix it and with parts all from Lowes. I am including the part numbers I used, as well as a diagram of how they are arranged when installed and a picture of the completed instalation. The price listed for the parts are for the total. Total time to install might be around 30 minutes tops.

Tools needed:
A 3/4" box end wrench, a 3/4" socket, a ratchet, and a short extension for the ratchet.

Parts & Lowes Item number:
(2) Hex Bolts 1/2" x 2" (( 63329) These are loose in a tray. $1.08)
(4) Flat Washers 1/2" (( 63309) These are loose in a tray. $0.80)
(2) Hillman 1/2 x 5/8 x 1 Steel Spacer - Zinc ((880419 or 137142) These are in one of the blue drawers at Lowes under specialty hardware. They come
1/bag. $3.02)
(1) HM 5/8" SAE Flat Washers (( 25602) These are in a little red bag and come 2/bag. $0.98)
(4) HM 5/8" Helical Lock Washers (( 63412) These are loose in a tray. $1.12)
(2) Hex Lock Nuts 1/2" (( 63406) These are loose in a tray. $0.98)
(1) 3/8" x 10-1/2" Turnbuckle - Zinc (( 22233) These are loose in a box on the same aisle as the door ***** in the back half of the aisle on the right
from the front of the store. $3.27)

Parts Total: $11.25 (This value doesn't reflect the price with tax because I had to make a few trips inside to swap parts out before getting it right.)

Since the turnbuckle can be adjusted, I won't tell you what length to set it at. Just adjust it as needed. I put everything together before crawling under my truck. Then it was a simple matter of unscrewing the lock nut and then pulling washers off, threading the bolt & spacer through the hole in the transfer case connection, then putting the washers back on the bolt and hand tightening the lock nut. Then I repeated the same procedure on the shift lever, but flipped the direction the bolt is facing. This must be done so that you can shift into 4 low. Running the bolts facing the same direction results in clearance issues with the transfer case housing. After both ends were connected, I got in my truck and checked to make sure the linkage was working right & it was, so I crawled abck under my truck and tightened the nuts & bolts with hand tools and that was that. While talking with one of the people working the hardware department, he advised me that the steel might pull the threads from the aluminum turnbuckle. While that might be a possibility, I don't forsee a problem with this, but I will check and see how it is holding up in a month.

I do hope this works for you. If not, it is at least a starting point.[/QUOTE



Worked like a charm after all theses years it's still helping people!

 

X2 mine came loose a couple weeks ago, great fix, easy and effective.

 

You raise an excellent point. Now I'm curious about how nylon bushings could be integrated into the fix. I'll look into it at some point in time I'm sure.

Props to you for giving a different viewpoint I hadn't considered.

 

How long is that rod from end to end? Or for the fix, how long is it from bold to bolt?

 

Thanks so much to OP for taking the time to research and post all the serial numbers and most importantly the fix! I was able to order all the parts online from Lowe’s and have everything ready to pick up in store (saved me the time of looking through bins for everything).. less than 12$ and 30 min later I have 4WD again (no ‘slop’ either like the old linkage)... nothing like being in the middle of a snow storm to find your shifter wobble back and forth.. Thanks again man!

 

It’s now the end of 2023 and I just found your thread. On the 14th I purchased a 2005 dodge ram 1500 from an elderly couple. My 17-year-old son figured out that you couldn’t put it in four-wheel-drive, sent me the part on Amazon which we ordered and it already failed. So I am going to send him to Lowe’s to purchase everything and he is going to put it together so we can have four-wheel-drive when the snow starts flying! Thank you and I’ll post a picture once he has it installed!