deaner5566

well first off, thank you everyone here that has helped me so far and all the peole who help in the future as well. the blunt of the story is my 06 dodge ctd 4X4 slt 6-speed 2" level kit and has 100,000 thousand on her now and the front end diffently has a case of the "WOBBLES". ive done most of the regular matianance my self but did go the entire 100,000 without replacing the stock shocks or steering stablizer. the brake pads lasted though!. anyways i went to the local 4 wheel part proformance center last week and had them put on a set of pro comp es9000 shocks and a pro comp steering stabalizer. i could have done it my self but they were slow and the price was right so easy choice right. it also gave them a chace to see where the WOBBLE was coming from. they told me i need new ball joints and rod ends, and for them to do it with all OEM Moog parts would be $1360 + an allignment. so off on a week of forum typing and parts searchin i went.....


so far these are the choices im facing. i have about $1500 to work with and maybe a little bit more if my other 1/2 will let me use some of her student loans. but that might equal to a lot of . so that might not be to good! i really really want to do it myself im fairly mechanical and i have my dad and a couple good friend to help! i have 3 days of work time if need be to get the work done hopfully quicker. i would love not to have to do this every couple years considering i drive every where and the roads in CA are like the baja with all the pot holes and road construction.


so for ball joints there is the decision between:

Carli which the say last "forever" but the upper bj is the only one out right now! so you have to use the OEM for the lowers and thts seems like a weak link to me. please correct me if im wrong!!!
the upper set are $550
and the moog OEM's lowers are around $125-$250


Dynatrac upper and lower set which is susposed to be 3X stronger than OEM and are fully rebuildable.
a set of upper and lowers are $599 and the rebuild kit for all 4 is around $100
* this is the first release on these part so do i trust the first run of parts or am i going to be a guine pig???

I havn't been able to locate any stronger rod ends and a set of OEMs are i think around $250 or $300. please correct me if im wrong!

Ive found about 1000 different track bars and have no idea whats the best 1 for the $ and really which company to trust!


any help or guideance would be huge i read most of the posts and treads i could find, Ive seen most of the pictures too ( thanks everybody for posting those) so i think ive got a good idea what the project will intail i know it will be frusterating and a lot of work but you gotta learn sometime and there is no time better than now!!!! im just hoping for this project to go relativly smooth and not turn into


thanks in advance everyone!!!!!

XLR8R

Typical knee-jerk reaction from dealers, off-road & alignment shops... figure throwing parts at the problem might work, without understanding what the cause is.

the BJ wear-spec is so large, I've seen new units close to the limit - especially since the upper is just a floating kingpin design.

I recommend - if you haven't already - having the caster maximized (4.5-%*+ is ideal) and checking that the front tires are fully inflated... bear in mind that discrete-lug MT tread will heighten DW sensitivity, as will poorly-constructed (i.e. "cheap") or unbalanced tires.

Also, removing lateral compliance from the track bar bushings & mounting hardware will usually eliminate any tendency towards death wobble.

p.s you should check the BJ's wear yourself to see how bad they are - only takes a few minutes... I have yet to see a DW'ing truck in the shop with BJs worn past spec according to "the dealer", "my mechanic", "the alignment shop", etc.