So I was parallel parking my truck today and went to turn the wheel back the other way to straighten out and the wheels didn't turn, just the steering wheel. I hop out the truck and look at all the steering and everything looks fine and have a buddy turn the wheel and sure enough the shaft on the steering box was moving not the pitman arm. The pitman arm split wide open right around the shaft, there was a 1/4 inch wide split, complete failure of the pitman arm.
I just feel fortunate that this didn't happen while on the freeway or anything, but then again why did it happen. Have any of you heard/experienced this? I would think this is a part you can count on lasting longer than the truck......

 

Did you ever have DW?? Just wondering if there was any indication of an issue before the failure.

 

Even still with DW, a Pitman arm shouldn't break from that, especially around the splines. I would say faulty from the manufacturer (of the Pitman Arm).

 

Wow, that's scary. I can imagine how glad you are that you weren't on the freeway when it broke.

 

no there was no death wobble or anything before hand, no indication what so ever before it broke. I finished talking to the dealer a couple hours ago and at least I'm getting it fixed under warranty.

 

I'm thinking larger than stock tires and offset wheels.

 

I know superlift had a bad batch of pitman arms about 2 years ago. They sent me a replacement free and when I took the old one off, 30 percent of the teeth on the old one were stripped out. Scary stuff indeed.

 

Yes, there was a nation wide recall on a ton of drop pitman arms.

Bad casting made the parts prone to cracking....

 

Your drop pitman arm is getting fixed under warranty or you had a factory pitman arm on 4" of lift?

 

I just read a article some where???? that address that same problem on stock suspension, dodge has a update on the pitman arm and tie rods for 03 to 05 I had wrote the part numbers down but I cant find them sorry

 

Yep! I had just installed my lift when I heard about the recall, I called them up and they sent out a new one pretty quick, luckily it was easy to just swap out before something happened.

 

I thought it was the stock pitman arm... does anybody have the measurement on the stock pitman arm drop so I can check? The guy I bought from had bought the truck new from dealer with the lift on it.

 

I just measured the broken pitman arm and it seems to be about a 4" drop

 

Your dealer is going to warranty this with your modifications? You should pimp that dealership every chance you get.

 

I remember seeing the thread. I just checked the TSB list I've got and nothing there. Here's a link though y'all might like. http://www.dodge.com/webselfservice/...m%28%27R%27%29