OMG What a Difference!!!

So this weekend I had a lovely expensive project planned. Turns out the project ended up including more parts than anticipated but that's how things go. So here is a little story to share along with some friendly advice.

So to start off. Last weekend i had to replace the driver side ball joints on my truck. No biggie. Picked them up with a $150 bill. Got back to the shop and started to tear into the drivers side. Took the wheel off, caliper and pads off, pulled the rotor and started to pull off the hub. This hub had never been off the truck. Took the crappy designed 12pt rusted in solid bolts loose with the impact. Then to find the hub rusted to the knuckle. No big deal put the bolts back in hit it with the air hammer and out she came. Little did we know that we just sheared off the threads in the hub and the bolt. Replaced the ball joints piece of cake. Go to put the hub back in and find the jacked up threads. Awesome... then while we had it all apart found the U Joint was rusted almost solid. Awesome. So now i need new hub bolts new hub and a U Joint. Ok look up prices. $130 for the hub, $20 for the joint and $25 for the bolt. Then to add in I need a new ABS sensor to go in the new hub. $131 for that sensor. Good god man!!!!!!!!

Ended up finding a combo kit online with 2 hubs 2 new sensors shipped for hundred bucks. Snatched that up and a U Joint. Not a bad deal. So replacing the parts today cant get a new bolt from the dealer. None in stock. And i dont wanna pay $25 a bolt. Hardware store had the exact bolt and thread i need for $6. Thats my style. I will give it a week and we will see but I do suggest upgrading the stupid 12pt to a standard grade 8. Anyway got it all back in. New hubs in, new senzor in, new joint in. Then go to check the pumpkin cause we thought we found dirt in the fluid a while back. Changed that. Oh and for future reference the dana 44 on a 1500 wants 75 140w synthetic. So be warned its not cheap. Turned out clean. But while in there wanted to check the gear ratio. Turns out to be a 3.69????? WTF????? Build sheet says 3.92 but nothing on the housing or pinion says that. Can anyone help in that department???
Anyway.... Long enough book for yall. But it all made a HUGE difference. Truck drives smother, handles better in 4wd, and goes in and out of 4wd smooth.

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dang, glad it worked out though! so this could be a dumb question, but how do you know if your ball joints need to be replaced..?

Glad you got it all fixed and didn't have to spend an arm and a leg on those bolts lol. Where did you see the gear ratio of 3.69 at? That would definitely be a new one to me. I remember when I changed the fluid in my front diff, the metal tag on the front had some weird number stamped for the gear ratio. It was something like 45.6 lol

The only gear options I know of is 3.54, 3.73 and 4.11 for these truck but I could be wrong too...

Damn dude, that's a lot of work and headache.

I think the ratios for the Rams were 3:21,3:55 and 3:91.

glad to see you got it back together...

3:92 would be the optional gear in a 1500 non off road.

The funky #s you noticed might be setup specs, or the ring and pinion gear teeth count which you can figure out your ratio from.

I would probably not change out the hub bolts. The 14 pt small head gives you more clearence than a hex. With the proper socket they come right off.

BTW folks...never sieze is your friend on this job. Coat your bearing outer and every fastener and surface but your u-joint cups with a liberal dose.

I got the ratio from counting the ring gear teeth and dividing by the pinion.
Thought that was the way to check. But yea there were numbers on the ring gear and they return nothing. I thought that for our trucks you had a choice of 3.55 or 3.92 in a 1500 and up to a 4.10 in a 2500. So i dunno. Build sheet says 3.92.

As far as a headache it wasnt too bad. More aggravating at the price. The gear oil alone was $60.

I do recommend changing out the 12pt bolts. Also I hope no other 2nd gen has the AWABS. It is a pain!!!

Oh and to answer the question on checking ball joints is to jack the truck up and take you wheel and see if it will wiggle back in forth top and bottom.

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Factory allows .125 (1/8 inch) play lateral movement in ball joints. Although it can be done correctly with a magnetic dial indicator, most guys can eyeball an eigth inch.

Good info to have. I was told by my alignment shop. And to find out that it was actually my upper that was the problem. Still truck drives totally different.

ha i replaced my u joints the other day and had the same problem, beating the hub off with a hammer and chisel sure does screw up the threads! not to mention we also broke 2 of our half inch drive rachets trying to get the damn axle bolt off! so needles to say i was a few hundred dollars into the project between tools and parts.

Yup feel your pain. The firat time I had to do u joints i broke one ratchet then went to a breaker bar and about 10ft of pipe and heat to get that nut off. This time just an impact. But on Ebay you can get a pair of brand new hubs for like a hundred bucks. And if you go to Ace hardware and get a grade 8 14mm fine thread 6" bolt you can replace the messes up bolts and the new hubs for about $150 total. Just some food for thought.

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Ball Joints!

How much do you think it would be to replace the front 2 ball joints? and whats a good brand of ball joints to buy? Thanks!

^^^Sorry I missed your reply Dude!

I got Moog upper and lower. An extra 10 bucks. The price the shop quoted was like $400.

I believe the Moogs have a lifetime warranty also. Shop quoted me $700 to replace the ones on my '99. We managed to get it broken loose with some penetrating oil, and air chisel, and lots of sweat. Didn't tear up the threads, but it was no picnic.

The number on the gear is some sort of an indicator for what shims are needed to properly install it. To the best of my knowledge only the factory puts these on the gears. (Information from my Differentials book from Randy's R&P)

Why are u guys leaving the bolts in? Just loosen the axle nut then tighten back up, pull the bolts out and hammer away. Once the bearing is free unscrew the axle nut. That way the bolts don't get fubared. That's how I have been doing it.

Because there didn't seem to be enough room to hammer away.

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Good info for m e here! glad everything worked out for you, but sucks at the price tag.

Bigtman07 said:

I got the ratio from counting the ring gear teeth and dividing by the pinion.
Thought that was the way to check. But yea there were numbers on the ring gear and they return nothing. I thought that for our trucks you had a choice of 3.55 or 3.92 in a 1500 and up to a 4.10 in a 2500. So i dunno. Build sheet says 3.92.

As far as a headache it wasnt too bad. More aggravating at the price. The gear oil alone was $60.

I do recommend changing out the 12pt bolts. Also I hope no other 2nd gen has the AWABS. It is a pain!!!

Oh and to answer the question on checking ball joints is to jack the truck up and take you wheel and see if it will wiggle back in forth top and bottom.

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i thought that wheel check was for your hub? at least thats what i was told lol so how do you check if your hub is good if that is the test for ball joints? my passenger side is fine but just replaced hub and ball joints and the driver side already has play in it again... stupid big tires lol so is my hub or my ball joints bad?