My 2003 had drastically gone down hill driving in the past few weeks. About 6 months ago I had some bad road walk, and I replaced ball joints, wheel bearings and the culprit: steering gear box. All the tie rods ends were good along with the track bar and the truck drove really good after all of that.

In the past couple weeks the road walk is back, but its different, it feels like the whole front axle is shifting side to side allowing the truck to wander, whereas before you could tell it was in the steering sector. I just put new 315's on the truck a few months back, and in the past couple of weeks the driver side front tire appears to be worn over half as much as the other tires (evenly across the tread) with additional "dishing" on the inside tread. I have a clicking in the front end now heard from 20 to 50 MPH, and in my commute to work thats about 65 miles round trip it was noticably worse from the time I left home to getting back.

I jacked the truck up, and the wheel bearings, ball joints and tie rod ends all still feel tight. However, the picture below shows the control arms, which appear to be bent coming from the frame to the axle. I have nothing else to compare these to so I didn't know if this was normal or if the bushings could be out causing the odd angle. As you can tell they are not coming off the frame and staying perpidicular to the axle, they are more pointed towards the tires. Jacked up it didn't seem to have slack, but I couldn't jack the truck up from the frame with what I had, so I'm guessing the control arms still had a lot of pressure on them being jacked under the axle. HELP!

 

In my world of talking 4X4 suspension parts, you're talking about a front radius arm I believe... A control arm to me is part of an IFS setup, in a 2wd truck.

 

Fair enough, I wasn't totally sure of the actual name. Its the arm between the frame and the drive line in the first picture. Thats the bottom one and there is one on top both coming from the frame to mounts on the axle. I thought they were control arms and being there's 4 of them what makes it called a "4 link" front end....

 

ok, I didn't realize 4x4 dodges had a 4-link front suspension... In that case they're not called radius arms.. I had to do some research and some people do call them control arms, or simply "links"

 

OP, mine do the same thing, as in the axle mounts are wider/outboard of the frame mounts.

It isn't out of the question that the bushings are worn and could use a refresh. They could be the source of movement. Under the trucks it is hard to tell when they have so much weight on them. But under use the heavy front end makes the components move around like melted marshmallows.

I've heard of the stock arms getting beat up enough to need replacing, even failing on the road from rust through. But that's up to your determination and not saying that is necessary in your case. Just a "it happens".

As for the side to side feel, I would have a serious look at your track bar bushings and mounting hole in the frame. That hole tends to wallow out. It then rattles or moves on you no matter how tight the bolt is. It does require a fix. I've heard of guys welding in appropriate sized washers. I wonder if a sleeve through there would be helpful too?