|
|
Posted by Mr.PG on Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 11:52:14 :
In Reply to: Death dance posted by Bob in Indy on Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 07:34:39 :
I have felt the Death Dance, or Wobble a few times in the past on my pre 1993 CTD trucks, it's not fun and like you said you can't drive out of it. The only way to stop it is to slow the truck down, or fix the problem. Try going down Vail pass with a 40' gooseneck behind you and the truck starts doing the Dance that's when it becomes real Fun!!
The problem is the upper king pin bushings are worn out. There is not a anyway to check them to see if they are worn out really, because they always have spring tension on the upper bushings to set the preload. So if you jack the front end up to try and wiggle the tires like you would when checking to see if a ball joint is bad it will have tension on them and will make you think that they are good, when they are not. You can tell when they are worn out when the truck starts doing the Dance.
You can buy the king pin rebuild kit from Quad4x4 (see link) for a little over $200.00 and they are pretty easy to do your self, the hardest part is getting the upper king pin out of the axle housing. The way I have found easy to get them out is weld a nut on it and get after it with a impact. Or not even replace them at all, my the last truck I did had over 300k on it and the upper king pins where still good only the bushings were wornout.
Like Norm said a steering stabilizer is only a band aid. And will only hide the problem for a short time, I tryed it once and the Dance came back. Then I thought the tie rods were bad, and it still did the Dance, It was only fixed after I called Dan at Quad and told him what the truck was doing, and he sold me the right King pin kit, no more Dancing!!
I have had three 1994 and newer Rams with high miles and have never had them Dance. I have only had it happend on the pre 1993 trucks, all my trucks have had stock springs, stock tires, and no heavy front bumpers. It is just a part that wears out like anything else. I think it has more to do with the fact that the Cummins motor weighs almost 1200 lbs and is always sitting on the front end and the fact that the pre 1993 truck were still built like trucks and ride like trucks should rough!
Hope this helps, Matt