Steering Wobble.
 

I'm getting a SEVERE wobble, once in awhile when I hit a bump. It will stop when I get the truck slowed way down or stopped. It doesn't seem to matter what speed. When I bought the truck they guy that sold it to me had receipts for when the trac bar, and ball joints were all replaced which has been within a year. Can you guys please point me in a starting direction for this problem. I really don't know much about the steering and suspension, so starting points, and problems that you've encountered and how to check for them would be very helpful. :s:

you my friend have the wonderful death wobble. I went through this earlier this year. you need to replace your upper and lower drag links on both sides and that will fix the problem

and just an fyi do it as soon as you possibly can because what causes it is your drag links are bent like they shouldn't be and they could end up snapping if your unlucky which equals :ouch:

What do the drag links look like? Also I noticed today that I'm leaking power steering fluid from the Gear box down there. Wondering if this could be part of the issue?

mine had a bad wobble, had a worn out hub and i changed that and the problem went away, came back, had loose ball joints, fixed that and its been gone since. the other day coming home from the bar i was going way to fast over the railroad tracks and i was correcting the steering all over the place since this thing wanders so much and right when i went over the railroad tracks i got the wobble, this was a pretty extreme situation tho, i was steering it as the front end went over the bump and the front end was light since the pedal was to the floor. i notice the front end clunks when i back outa the driveway in the morning, so maybe iv got the same problem? i just thought this was normal for big tires(being that i only get it in a pretty extreme situation), i figure these trucks(like any solid axle truck) with larger then stock tires could benefit from a good steering stabilizer and mine has none at all...

i guess what im trying to find out is if any death wobble at all even in a ridiculous scenario like stated above is ever acceptable. i always though steering was always an issue on solid axle trucks with big tires.

I'm thinking it's not acceptable. Mine doesn't need an extreme situation necessarily. I believe it's not always about big tires either, I have a 285 75 16. I'll be dropping it off to be evaluated today, since these 14 hour days are killing my work on the truck time.

if your truck will just do it out of the blue like when you hit a lil bump it's the death wobble for example mine did it one day going 30 mph while i was pulling my trailer and both mowers.. i'll try and find another thread on here that talks about it i know there is one somewhere

ok there is your picture of a drag ling there is one on both passenger and driver side i'd check those and make sure they are not bent in wrong places. also a simple ballance rotate and alignment can help


https://www.dieselbombers.com/attach...1&d=1289403659

So the verdict is a crappy upper ball joint on the passenger side, and the trac bar had nearly a half an inch of play in it. Plan is to replace the right side ball joints, and the trac bar, a 4 wheel alignment, and rotate and balance the tires. I think it will be much improved after that.

sounds good let us know how it turns out

well i fixed y steering problem. the guy who put the lift kit on didnt tighten the pitman arm all the way down and he left a few joints loose as well, it was a mess under there lol, everything was loose. if your still having issues after ball joints maybe take a look at your pitman arm, if it has ever been changed by a previous owner he might have done a poor job putting it on, that was my problem(after i changed bad ball joint like your doing), maybe take a look at yours.

for those of you still wondering the death wobble on any straight axle truck(these dodges in particular) an be caused by any of the many steering components going bad. steering box, tracbar, balljoints, etc.... what happens is when you hit a bump the tires end up bouncing back and forth in the slack of the worn out component. the best way to check for these things is to just get under the truck. if your slack is in the drag links you can grab ahold of them and try to move them back and forth(they should he very stiff and hardly budge at all) jack up the front of the truck and try to move the top of the tire in and out(if it moves and or makes a clicking sound either your ball joints and or wheel bearings are bad) to check the track bar( large bar that connect driver side frame to passenger side of the axle) have someone push the truck fom side to side, and slack will be noticably visable. to check the steering box , turn the wheel from side to side, you will be able to feel if the box has slack in it because the wheel will turn an execptional amount without moving the wheels and the shaft coming out of the bottom of the box will look like it is moving of kelter a bit. sorry for the long post but hopefully this will help some of you guys.