sleblanc386

I have a 2002 with 89000 miles on it, the front end seems like its about to fall out from under the truck and lots of slop in the steering whats the best way to solve my problems??

dozer12216

Take to a reputable shop and have it inspected. Have the needed repairs done and job is over for many thousands of miles. And your frustrations is limited to dollars spendt.

badme

Where are you located at?

sleblanc386

located in upstate NY

badme

I agree with dozer, have a reputable garage check it out and go from there.

LongBlackRam

89000 miles is about when my Ram's steering got too loose for me. I took it in (to Rip) for inspection. Ended up replacing the track bar, tie rods, drag link and ball joints.
Got it aligned and it drives great. Remember to tell the shop doing the alignment that you want them to set the caster to the maximum.

smokinram99

set the caster to the maximun...can you explain me better?

SIXSLUG

Make sure you get the good parts (MOOG) and take a look at replacing the stock trac bar w/ an aftermarket unit like a Thuren or Luke's. The ends are rebuildable and they really aren't that much more money considering labor and alignments to replace the stock trac bar if you get a crummy one.

I have read many, many posts on this before I replaced everything in my 01 and the theme seems to be the trac bar goes first and everything else deteriorates after that. Installing a better trac bar keeps the other components from going prematurely to their normal lifespan which should be quite a long time if you aren't beating your truck or doing a lot of off/dirt road driving.
The Thuren trac bar ends are rebiuldable for about $90 and if you set everything back you won't need to realign the front end. Mine's been in over a year and my front end is still tight.

Kurt

LongBlackRam

Kurtaing hit it on the head, use high quality parts. I also used Moog adjustable (by the guy doing the alignment) ball joints, tie rods and drag link. I used a 3rd gen adjustable trackbar.

Here is what I mean by max caster: There is a range of acceptable values for camber, caster and toe in. Most shops will adjust until the caster is within published specifications. Experience has shown these Dodges drive better when the caster is set to the high end of that tolerance. I recall that the max value is approx. 3 degrees. It is slightly different left to right.

You might want to do a search on alignment specifications...

lbr