New to dodge! Couple questions.

Wow so I went to rock auto and looked up the part numbers I will need for my tie rods and I will save more than $100. with the outer tie rod ends do I just need two of them though because when I looked up the left and right its the same part number on autozone's website so I will just buy two from rock auto?

Cool

rambob said:

Cool

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Yeah I thought so too! Does that make sense though that I would just order two of the outer tie rod ends since they have the same part number?

Hollabakzach23 said:

Thats not a bad idea if the seals are that cheap... How hard is it to go about changing those?

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Not to bad really... I've rebuilt a few of the Sagnaw steering boxes... The bad part is dealing with all 22 BB's that go back in the rack. (There is a way around this though!) As a matter of fact I got a Ford out in my yard I got to redo the power valve because I installed the wrong one... (D'Oh!)

If you need give me a shout 208-628-3645 I'm more than happy to walk you through the process of pulling apart the gear box and changing the seals.

Mopar1973Man said:

Not to bad really... I've rebuilt a few of the Sagnaw steering boxes... The bad part is dealing with all 22 BB's that go back in the rack. (There is a way around this though!) As a matter of fact I got a Ford out in my yard I got to redo the power valve because I installed the wrong one... (D'Oh!)

If you need give me a shout 208-628-3645 I'm more than happy to walk you through the process of pulling apart the gear box and changing the seals.

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Thatd be cool man I appreciate that. I'll be sure to if I order the seals with the rest of my parts!

welcome to RF

quietpeen said:

welcome to RF

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Thanks bud! Pretty helpful around here seems like a great group of people. I'm likening it.

So here's a new one for ya guys. I'm planning on taking some time tonight to mess with that steering adjuster as stated above and try to get rid of some of the sloppy steering and try that first and take it to my shop next to work and have them look it over and align it let me know if these tie rods are really bad or if my first so called "mechanic" was telling me something he himself wasn't sure about.

My new topic is mind boggling an I can't believe I missed it looking over all these times. But my buddy pointed out that I was missing a lug nut on my passenger rear wheel. So I looked at it more and there's not even a stud there?! What all is necessary in fixing this I've never run into something like this on any of my vehicles so i have minimal knowledge on this.

you can buy a stud at most autopart stores. iirc they just press or hammer in from the back

it probably broke or had to be cut due to over tightening or whatnot.

You should be able to use an open ended lug nut to pull the stud through

Oh okay thanks guys I was scared I was gonna have to replace something much larger I just thought it was the strangest thing! I'll have to add that to my to do list this weekend

Hey guys just an update. Got a few things taken care. My rear brake issue is gone nothing was leaking everything else looked fine back there. I been driving it everyday so it must have been from sitting for so long.

As far as the power steering I am running the stop leak in there like mentioned enforce but I may just end up rebuilding or replacing the box because I'm pretty sure that's where the leak is coming from. With that though is my sloppy steering that is going on. I have tried the DIY to adjust the steering but I can not find the hex head bolt for the life of me? Does anyone have a picture handy or can you sort of walk me through where it is located lol.

Taking my truck in Tuesday to have someone else look at the tie rods and tell me if those really need to be replaced. And the steering stabilizer along with my leveling kit and shocks are going to be replaced starting next weekend. So if I have to do the steering box as well I will do that then.

Gonna go pick up my wheel stud this afternoon and throw that on with a lug nut and take care of that. With that will I just take the wheel off and beat it in from the back and put the wheel back on?

But as a fun project I went ahead and tinted my tails and third brake light an it looks real sharp with the blue truck but that's really just a side note! I'll post some pics later! Thanks again guys for everything so far I've been on this forum nonstop for like the last week!

Here's a pic of the steering box like you'd see froml lying on the ground looking up at it. The bolt you're looking for is the "taller" one in the back. The one with a few threads sticking up


There's only 3 of them on the top. Just feel around and you'll be able to tell which one you should be messing with. It'll be the only one with an opening in the top. I took a few pics and this was as good as I could get from my phone

Okay thanks for that man! So the hex key and the wrench are going in the same spot is this correct?

Yup. Wrench goes around it and hex key goes on the inside

You're amazing. Checked back to this thread too late but I will get on that tomorrow morning I believe! Thanks again I'll report back tomorrow I suppose!

Lol alright. It's not hard at all. Just make sure you don't have the truck running when you do it or you'll get sprayed with PS fluid. And when you break the nut loose, make sure not to turn the hex more that a half a turn at a time, re-tighten the nut and check the play in the wheel

Went and tightened up my steering today! Took away almost all play! Did almost one complete turn of the Allen wrench but it took almost all play off of my wheel! Real easy to do once I figured out where the hex went! Thanks again for the help! Now on to have it aligned and then some shocks and a level!

I've started tracking my power steering leak and I believe it's coming from the power steering pump just not 100% where quite yet haha So just gotta start looking deeper into that and go from there.

Finished up my tails today and they do look good I think. I am going to replace all the bulbs on my truck with LEDs sometime this week also because the tail light bulbs were left on the truck when it was repaired and there was a ton of over spray on them.

Just keeping updated! I don't know if there's a designated section for the second gens but I will probably just continue this as my build thread as I continue to fix these other problems as well. Thanks for everyone's input and help along the way!

That's great. After reading your post, I'm going to finally try it this week

Nice I think this steering box tip may apply to my 99 Durango that has a ton of play.