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If I am going to do tie rod ends and steering components

portlandareae28
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01cummins4ever

01cummins4ever

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@Dieselfuture  I admire your ingenuity, and thanks for sharing your work, although just wondering why a person would need an adjustable track bar on a stock height truck? Have you ever had to adjust it, and what would determine the need for adjustment, would it be just taking up slack in the ball stud? Or re center the axle for some reason

When I did my Luke's links, I did all the joints while I was at it, that was just a no brainer, that was in 2011 and now the track bar joint seems to have a little play so adding a shim with the L.L kit is supposed to fix that, but we'll see I guess

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Dieselfuture

Dieselfuture

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@01cummins4ever  I think all track bars should be adjustable, when I got my truck the track bar was shot, I put a new one one just to find out I had to jack the frame up to put it in and that's how they go bad so quickly. Front springs get tired over time and track bar needs to be shorter or it constantly getting pushed towards passenger side and frame and axle are not straight. 

I did had to adjust track bar to be shorter when first started to mess with it. I must of had tired front springs, so frame is closer to axle but track bar is still same length and axle gets shoved to passengers side with constant pressure on ball joint of track bar. When I built my front bumper out of 1/4" steel I had to make track bar even shorter, that's when I debated spacers or springs, ended up buying factory plow package springs because spacers would mess things up in steering geometry and will not support extra waight since they're tired already. I was going to build my own 1.5 inch spacers at first just so I could be around factory hight but found a set of new springs for under $200 i believe. So after I put new springs I had to make track bar longer and after few months it settled down some so I made it shorter, about half year later it settled and that was last time I made adjustment, it may be time now to check. It is still 3/4 of an inch taller than it was before I added front bumper. So basically by not making track bar shorter you're using it as a lift kit, it will actually lift front of the truck up slightly depending on how tired your suspension is. So no wonder they only last 20-30k or so. When that ball joint wears steering becomes very sloppy because you're adding extra travel side to side and gear box gets more abuse too, having to pull your axle over and lift your tuck before it even moves tires. That's why I also have a brace for gear box. There is a lot of little things that get messed up on a bad track bar. Hope I made some since :ahhh:

At least that's what I've experienced with my truck. 

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portlandareae28

portlandareae28

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3 hours ago, Dieselfuture said:

@01cummins4ever  I think all track bars should be adjustable, when I got my truck the track bar was shot, I put a new one one just to find out I had to jack the frame up to put it in and that's how they go bad so quickly. Front springs get tired over time and track bar needs to be shorter or it constantly getting pushed towards passenger side and frame and axle are not straight. 

I did had to adjust track bar to be shorter when first started to mess with it. I must of had tired front springs, so frame is closer to axle but track bar is still same length and axle gets shoved to passengers side with constant pressure on ball joint of track bar. When I built my front bumper out of 1/4" steel I had to make track bar even shorter, that's when I debated spacers or springs, ended up buying factory plow package springs because spacers would mess things up in steering geometry and will not support extra waight since they're tired already. I was going to build my own 1.5 inch spacers at first just so I could be around factory hight but found a set of new springs for under $200 i believe. So after I put new springs I had to make track bar longer and after few months it settled down some so I made it shorter, about half year later it settled and that was last time I made adjustment, it may be time now to check. It is still 3/4 of an inch taller than it was before I added front bumper. So basically by not making track bar shorter you're using it as a lift kit, it will actually lift front of the truck up slightly depending on how tired your suspension is. So no wonder they only last 20-30k or so. When that ball joint wears steering becomes very sloppy because you're adding extra travel side to side and gear box gets more abuse too, having to pull your axle over and lift your tuck before it even moves tires. That's why I also have a brace for gear box. There is a lot of little things that get messed up on a bad track bar. Hope I made some since :ahhh:

At least that's what I've experienced with my truck. 

When you say brace for gearbox, are you talking steering gearbox or transmission?

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Mopar1973Man

Mopar1973Man

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Steering box brace is only needed for oversized tire users more so. If you are running stock tires not really required but could prove helpful. Like my truck I've never used a steering box brace and my gearbox now after 16 years and 316k miles is now started to weep. I'm running stock size tires. (235/85 R16)

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CTcummins24V

CTcummins24V

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On 9/21/2017 at 2:31 PM, portlandareae28 said:

On a stock height, stock tire size 3500 dually do I really need to worry about upgrading to 4th gen parts?  or will good aftermarket stock parts hold up another 300k miles?

 

I vote 2010 "T" style steering. I replaced everything with moog "Y" style, it was sloppy in less than 20k miles. My 2 cents

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Killer223

Killer223

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i got the mopar parts, i think there was a $60 difference from MOOG problem solvers, and the Mopar ones.

for me it was a bolt in process, for you, you might need the new pitman arm. (i have an extra) and i think there is some good videos on youtube about it.

i got mine from amazon. 

if you look at my post about steering damper you can see what i got.

 

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