95 2500 4x4. So today I pulled my 32 ft. Fifth wheel camper to a remote lake lot. It took 4 low and every thing my cummins had to get up some of hills. After dropping the camper I had to crawl through a pretty nasty " ditch " to get back to the road.

Once on the road I went from 4H to 2H on the fly. Everything was fine back up the hills and around the curves until I got back to the paved road.

When I got up to 45mph the truck started shaking violently. Enough that my passenger was nearly sitting on my lap before I got stopped.

My first thought was a broken tie rod end because it felt like the front tires were flopping side to side. After looking it over we could find nothing visibly wrong. I drove 20 miles home with no problems. Jacked it up and everything seems to be in decent shape. Not much play anywhere.

Any suggestions on what it could have happened here?

I primarily use the truck for pulling trailers and would hate for this to happen again with a load on.

 

would it have anything to do possibly with the vacuum actuator that is on the front axle

 

Sounds like death wobble. Check the track bar. It may look fine, may even feel fine when you're pulling on it. You'll need someone to jiggle the steering wheel while you look at it to see if it's actually tight. Could also be the same issue, caused by a compromised steering gear box mount. Your off road shenanigans could have put the hurt on either. Sorry to send you back where you've already looked, but that's what it sounds like to me. I'm sure someone else will chime in with more ideas though.

 

i had the same thing happen to my 97 3500 4x4. everything is fine then one day hitting a bumpy road section and my frotend went into the death wobble, shaking like crazy till i slowed down to about 20 then it was fine. i replaced my steering stabilizers and had a alighment done and havent happened yet. hope i dont go through it again though!

 

track bar

 

Thanks for the info. This is the first I've heard of the "death wobble". I will probably go through the whole steering system then take it to a alignment shop.

Who has the best mail order prices on these parts?

 

Find the culprit first. The front end will nickle and dime you to death if you don't hit it with a plan. Death wobble is well documented, people have been ranting about it for years... about twenty, actually. It's most common when you have either lifted the front suspension somehow (changing the angle of the track and steer bars), especially with larger tires. If the suspension and tires are stock, it's pretty uncommon until something wears out. Steering damper, end links, etc. If the problem is the gear box mount, a steering box stabilizer will take care of it. If it's the track bar, replacing the tie rod end with a Luke's Link and the old rubber bushing at the other end with a nice new one will take care of it. I never had death wobble until I put a 2" leveling kit in, then suddenly it started striking out of nowhere, nearly sending me off the road. I ended up needing an alignment, because lifting it changed the suspension geometry, but the real issue was the loose track bar.

 

I should have mentioned my truck also has a leveling kit and I'm running 285/75/16's

Looked it over a little better today. Found about 3/8 inch play in track bar when steering hard. Steering box looked good.

One thing has me stumped. I have a mount bolted to the frame (one on each side) and whatever was connected has been cut off with a torch. The mounts and bolts just don't look right enough to be factory. So I'm not sure if it was some kind of steering stabilizer or just a old snow plow mount.

Would a problem with the steering gear box be easy to see just looking at it while someone turns the wheel?

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I ordered a complete set of Lukes links on ebay for $80. I figured I couldn't get much cheaper than that. And I might as well do the other rod ends while I'm at it.

 

You can actually replace every tie rod end under there with Luke's Links. There are five including the one on the track bar that they work with. If you have 3/8" play in the trackbar (especially with those tires and a leveling kit), then you found your problem. I'd be interested to see a picture of what you're talking about that looks like it went under the hot knife though, color me intrigued...

 

If you shifted on the fly and didn't stop it probably didn't come out of 4x4 till you stopped