bonfy

Hi everyone! My name is Gloria. I live in Albuqueque, NM. After fourteen years of dreaming about it, I finally got my Dodge in June. It's a 2000 3500 4X4. I have been loving the heck out of it, right up until this morning on the way to work (5:45AM) on I-40. I had a rude awakening to the phenomena of Death Wobble. I made it to the shoulder thinking I had a blowout, but that wasn't the case. So I started off again nervously and immediately went into DW again. I crept off the nearest exit and stayed in 4th gear all the way to work. It happened the first time around 80mph. Had to change my knickers. As soon as I could get online at work, I googled it and found an excellent thread on this site. Both of my front tires were looking like they could use some air previous to this adventure so I will start with the basics and work through the process. On a happy note, while the truck was thrashing around, my nonexistent dashlights flashed on for a couple seconds leading me to hope that maybe I'll get them back someday if I can find the loose connection. My truck is used, needless to say, and I expected a few surprises. Hopefully, this will not be a bank account buster because I am getting laid off from Intel tomorrow and don't want my entire severance package sucked up by the front end of my Dodge. I love that thing anyway. Check back in a couple months and see if the honeymoon is over.

Totallyrad

Welcome to the site Gloria! Sorry to hear about you're employment issues but, now you have some RAM you can wrap your hands around.

rip 112

You don't deserve so much trouble. Hope everything goes well.

LOGAN

probably just a track bar or something simple, dont sweat the small stuff, my 95 V10's steering came apart at the draglink going down the street and i rolled to a stop on the sidewalk. that wasnt fun.

Murf

As stated before, welcome aboard! and it may be something as simple as tires or tie rods. or it could lead into ball joints and/or shocks. It's pretty much one thing at a time with the dreaded DW until it's fixed.

BTW, Do I spy a monster? Whatever it is it's a beautiful trellis framed duck.....or duke, whichever you prefer. Intel was nice to you!

bsj04

start small... get a helper to turn the steering wheel side to side while looking under the front end, check all steering and suspension joints for movement. jack up one tire at a time and check side to side movement and up and down movement. also check tire pressure. try and figure out whats not right and report back and so we can help you out a little better.

bonfy

Thanks everyone for the welcome, support, and technical hints! I will keep you posted as I work through the process.
Murf, that is a Ducati! Good eye. That's my Monster 695. In the background is my 1978 Toyota Landcruiser and 1993 Lebaron. A 1978 Honda CB750 rounds out the fleet. Between the Duc and Dodge, I am ridin' red for the most part. That was up till yesterday. Back in the Princess car today till I get my pink slip, then can get the truck to the tire shop to do some preliminary checks.

dssimecek

Hi and welcome to the site. Lot of information the the death wobble here, like others have said, start with the small easy, things.
Tuff gettinl laid off, hope you got a good package.
Good luck.

bonfy

That Spanish proverb happens to be one of my favorites! Thank you for the good wishes. Intel is taking care of us. It is all good. I am ready for the next chapter. Just hoping the front end is an easy fix or it'll have to wait till I am employed again.

bonfy

I took the truck in to have the wheels balanced to start. Of course, they found a flat spot on the right front so I bought a pair of tires the same size that I had. I had planned to upgrade when I started buying tires, but after looking through some of the posts on this site, I was undecided on the best way to go. For now I just got some standard tires to get me through until this death wobble thing is solved. They were at about 33% wear left so I didn't feel terribly bad.
I ran it down the road at 80 mph over the same place on I-40 a few times to see if it would repeat. So far, so good. I know it can't be this simple. I am constantly waiting for it to start thrashing around again. I won't let my guard down. We'll see...