Hey there.

I have a 1984 B250. Steering wobble was 30 degrees angle (15 degrees each side from centerline). Any speed faster then 50 to 60 mph on a narrow two lane hiway was a challenge.
after reviewing the conversations about this issue there seem to be 2 options - rebuilt steering box services: 1 in the US, the other in BC Canada. Since I live on Vancouver Island in BC I received a rebuilt one from Cancraft in Langley. It was installed by my mechanic and then after the wheel alignment was done it is as good as off the factory floor - about 6 degree total wobble. BE SURE TO SPECIFY when ordering if you have power or manual steering so that you get the right box. I got the wrong one and when I called them they sent the correct one within 3 days. I delivered the old one to their location in Langley 4 months later when I was passing through on a trip. Very great to deal with CanCraft! Cheers, Rich

 

Hi, I have a 1997 Leisure Freedom, with very, very low miles on it. From what I have learned from various resources, the sloppy steering, death wobble, etc, has a lot to do with the design of the front end, along with other contributors, a bad gear box one of them. But apparently, there is an issue with movement of the gearbox and steering shaft, causing wobble that can worsen, not to mention wearing ball joints etc.

I installed a steering gear box stabilizer (part about $130 USD) recommended by several Dodge owners. Ball joints, etc relatively new. Doing that and an alignment improved handling about 80+% alone. Installing new KYB gas adjust shocks another 10-20% improvement.
Check this out for the Steering damper: https://www.dodgeramsteeringstabilizer.com. Look at this website, it will address concerns. . The man who owns it is a machinist and has a lot of experience with Dodge.
I'm really glad I got and installed one. Was relatively inexpensive for a huge improvement

 

Looks interesting. I'll check that out!!

 

1992 Dodge B3500 "Roadtrek" van.
I got a "Redhead" steering gear and a coupler rebuild kit and installed them. When I had it aligned, I had the upper ball joints replaced, too.

When I first got this, it would do a crazy oversteer above 40mph, where a small correction at the wheel would be amplified until it threatened to leave the road. Is this the "death wobble" I hear about? There was a lot of sway in cornering that a rear anti-sway bar might have helped, but because the gas tank is oversized, it takes a special bar that runs over $1100!
I found that the rear tires had 60psi, and not the 80psi recommended. That helped some, but not nearly enough.

Ok, so my wife and I have always been tent campers, had another Class B for a few years and a Class C when we had kids...but now we don't have kids, and we are too old and creaky to tent camp anymore, so I found this Roadtrek for a good price and drove it 100 miles, experiencing that instability I talked about. The Dodge "Falcon" class B was not nearly as bad...I drove that one all over the country without having anything like that 100 miles happen.
I decided I would take out things that I didn't want or need. We looked at it more like a mobile tent...a real fancy one...with a built in propane stove, cooler/freezer, sink and toilet.
Luxury.

I took out the air conditioner which is tucked into the fiberglass nacelle, high and in the back. Blanked out the grilles on the back, and turned the space into a nice storage area. Took out the generator that was in a compartment at floor level behind the rear axle and put a larger waterproof hatch on the outside and made a big storage compartment accessible from the outside. Took out the furnace, that was also behind the rear axle at floor level on the opposite side. I left the water heater in, but if we find we don't use it, that will go, too. We never had a water heater/furnace/air conditioner/generator when we tent camped. We are "cold weather" campers...even when we had A/C in the other campers, we used it only once, because we had to stay at a KOA with shore power available near the Bonneville Salt flats on a hot night and we hated the noise more than the heat! We're from Northern Wisconsin...we know how to keep warm.
I got it up to 86mph on the flats, I'm sure it's a world record in my class...LOL!

Anyway, yesterday was the first test drive since I did all that and it is much much better. It corners without much sway at all and the oversteering "death wobble" is gone.
But it doesn't track straight ahead very well...with no input from the wheel, it will wander until I need to correct it. I can't drive with one hand while drinking my coffee and that is unacceptable! Takes too much constant attention to keep it in my lane.
The wheel bearings are good, no slack in the linkage (most components were replaced within the last 10K) so I'm looking at the caster.
It was aligned with 2.8 degrees positive caster, and the service data says that is good, but it can be as high as 3.75. Would more positive caster help? What would happen if was more than 3.75? It has power steering.
I can probably reduce the tire pressure, especially in the back after removing all that weight...but I don't know if that would affect the tracking. I'll try it, because it's free and easy.
I'm hesitant to do any adjusting of the new steering box. Redhead is pretty adamant about not messing with it.

Any suggestions would be most welcome.
GrandpaDan

 

The effect of adding positive caster is to track straighter, at the expense of turning radius. I'd tell them to max out on caster, in your case.
I know that it's fairly common that class-B campervans have no alignment specs in the books and so the shops will just align to the factory specs of the empty van, which seem to not be the ideal specs for heavy dodge camper vans.
I think the specs that the people in the campervan circles recommend are something more like 0 degrees caster, 0" toe (or maybe a tiny bit positive to compensate for slack in bushings), and maxxed out on caster.
Then there's also the issue of the rear wheel spacing being 4" narrower than that of the front on Dodge vans from this era. Many have found that spacers on the rear wheels made a huge difference in tracking.
Also, wear in the u-joint part of the steering shaft is a known source of slack in these old Dodges. See example here: (I'll DM you with a link regarding this).

 

Death wobble is only an issue on the 4x4 dodges.

 

You mentioned the upper ball joints were replaced, but what about the lower ball joints? How about the sway bar to frame bushings or the sway bar end links? Are the shocks new, or old and worn? Finally, have the bushings for the strut rods ever been replaced? Those are the rods that attach to the lower control arms and run back to the frame.

 

From the records, I see lower ball joints, idler arms, shocks, drag link were replaced 10K ago, but nothing on the sway bar links/brackets, or the strut rod bushings.
But the records are incomplete, because the strut rod bushings look new. The sway bar links and brackets are tight...the links look "newer" but the bracket bushings are probably original.

 

This is from my 1992 factory service manual. This model year didn't have a universal joint, or a "rag" joint. Just the coupler at the steering gear.

 

Even with a rebuilt steering box, it might behove you to check for slack in the steering gear, either with a helper to move the wheel while you look, or by removing the doghouse and looking at the pitman arm itself from the drivers seat. Additionally, if someone else is helping you, you can get under there and check the whole system for slack while they steer back and forth.

Have you measured the front vs rear axle width (wheel spacing)?