Hey y’all I just recently bought an ‘05 Ram 1500 5.7 4x4 with 199,xxx miles. The issue I’m having is when I drive about 55 mph or faster my steering wheel moves side to side almost as if my rotors were warped but it is essentially all the time at those speeds. As I accelerate the shaking gets worse and persists even when not on the throttle. I tried balancing my tires with no fix, I bought a new set of wheels and tires which didn’t fix it either. I got an alignment which also didn’t fix it.

I have tried to test out the tie rods by jacking the truck up and shaking the tires left and right and the passenger side had a little bit more give than the driver’s but it didn’t seem like anything that would cause an issue. My lower ball joints also tested fine as well as when I held the tire at 12 and 6 and shook it. My upper ball joints didn’t hold much grease when I tried to grease them but I don’t think those would be the issue either.

The one thing that I DID notice was that my front drive shaft had a torn seal/boot where the smaller part near the transfer case connects to the larger part of the drive shaft. The drive shaft also has a good amount of play. I suspect this is a factor to my shaking but I don’t think it is the only reason behind it.

I took a video of the play in my driveshaft and tomorrow I can take a video of the shaking to help further show what the issue is. I’ve tried looking online in other forums but I haven’t been able to find anything similar to my issue.

 

If you feel it thru the steering, it is something in the front suspension. How do the brakes feel when you apply them? Is the pedal bouncing under your foot??

Moving this to 3rd Gen Ram section for ya. Welcome to DF!

 

So I went out and drove the truck so I could better describe it and take a video. My brakes feel normal, I didn’t feel any sort of bouncing in the pedal or anything. I couldn’t really get up to speed like I would’ve liked to show the issue but I got 2 clips that might help. One thing that I did notice, although the issue persists when I’m not on the throttle, it seems like it’s worse while I am pressing the gas pedal.

 

Make sure you don't have a front axle that came loose from the stub shaft on the front differential.

 

I went out since the rain stopped and checked out my front cv axles like you said. I noticed they were a little sloppy before but now that I really looked at em and shook them something definitely seems wrong. They have a good amount of play on each axle. This is my first 4x4 so I have no clue how they SHOULD feel but I took a video of it so maybe someone who knows can tell me.