Ahh, night wheeling. Full moon, lights out, a desert wash, and the sound of mud-terrains shushing through the dirt. Then, Wham! Like a shot in the dark, a mischievous 3-foot boulder jumped out of nowhere. We rammed that sucker with our right front tire at about 35 mph, launching the truck skyward, bending the wheel, and even cracking the dash. Worse, we were many miles from pavement, and the output shaft in the steering gear was twisted nearly 90 degrees. Power-steering fluid was barfing from the seal, and thanks to the newfangled serpentine-belt system on the engine, we couldn't pull the belt to bypass the steering pump. By the time we muscled the thing over a hundred miles home, the dry-spinning steering box had totally eaten itself.
It was as good an excuse as any to upgrade all that junk. Besides, our '99 Dodge Ram 2500 V-10 4x4 already had been suffering from that odd steering clunk that many owners of '94-'02 Rams complain about. In some cases that noise can be caused by the flaky slip joint in the stock steering column, and that can be cured using an aftermarket column with double needle-bearing U-joints made by Borgeson (www.borgeson.com), and sold by PSC Motorsports (www.pscmotorsports.com), among others. But that wasn't our problem.
 1. Here's the underside of...  1. Here's the underside of our V-10 truck. You can't see the fubar'd steering sector shaft, but note the drive belt coming off the crank pulley; the power-steering box was so wrecked that the belt nearly flew off. The steering layout seen here is similar for all 1500, 2500, and 3500 Ram 4x4s, and all the upgrades mentioned in this story work on all three platforms. |  2. We removed the four bushing-bracket...  2. We removed the four bushing-bracket bolts to drop the sway bar for better access to the steering gear, and also because we'd be installing a steering-gear brace that sandwiches between those brackets and the frame. To remove the pitman arm from the steering box requires a puller tool, and we used Snap-On PN CJ119B (www.snapon.com), which is sold for $109.95. |  3. Removing the stock box...  3. Removing the stock box and installing the PSC Extreme Duty unit is as easy as R&Ring three frame bolts and a jamb nut on the steering column. We made sure the tires were straight ahead, the steering wheel was lined up, and the steering box was centered in its travel before reinstalling the pitman arm using the special nut/shaft supplied with the steering-brace kit (arrow). |
Instead, even with just 70,000 miles on the odometer, our truck had suffered for years with a junk track bar. The track bar is used to laterally locate the front axlehousing since the Rams use coil-spring front suspensions. The problem is that the ball-type, tie-rod-end-style connector used on the frame end of the bar wears out quickly, causing a thunk and allowing the front axle to wiggle a bit. Dodge figured out the problem in '03-and-up solid-axle trucks and swapped to bushing-style connections at both ends. Meanwhile, the aftermarket has a number of solutions.
4. The steering brace that...
4. The steering brace that we got through PSC kills nearly 2 inches of ground clearance up front, but supports the output shaft of the steering box, locking it with this special NTN Corp. bearing and spreading the load from framerail to framerail.
First, there's the Luke's Link (www.lukeslink.com), a rebuild kit for the frame end of '94-'02 track bars that includes a fixture that captures the ball socket of the rod ends to prevent loosening. Lindstadt Alignment (www.bellefourche.com/lindstad) also offers lower-cost basic rebuild kits for the track-bar ends. Next came brackets from Solid Steel Industries (www.solidsteel.biz) that allowed the older trucks to convert to the '03-and-up track bar. That same bracket can be used to mount the upgraded aftermarket track bars that are designed for '03-and-up trucks. KORE Performance (www.koreperformance.com) offers an '03-and-up style 4130 chromoly track bar that's stronger than stock to absorb real abuse, and Carli Suspension (www.thecarlisuspension.com) also has an '03-and-up bar with a spherical bearing on one end and a Delrin bushing on the other. DT Pro Fab (www.dtprofab.com) has an adjustable bar with Heim ends. Both '03-and-up bars and '94-'02 bolt-in replacements are offered by Thuren Fabrication (www.thurenfabrication.com), which uses a hardened stainless 1-inch Uniball at the frame end and a Delrin bushing at the other.
 5. The Dodge Magnum engine...  5. The Dodge Magnum engine design requires removing the power-steering pump with the bracket intact. The pulley is pressed onto the pump shaft and must be removed with a puller. We used a Snap-On set (PN CJ122) for $117 online. |  6. The PSC power-steering...  6. The PSC power-steering pump can be installed using a remote-reservoir-style can, as seen on the left. Instead, we removed the bolts, fittings, and one stud on the backside of the stock reservoir, then removed the pump and dropped the new unit in its place. When doing this yourself, be careful not to tear the seal around the perimeter of the pump (lube it first). |  7. Here's the meaty end of...  7. Here's the meaty end of the new problem-solving track bar from Rare Parts (PN 28444) for stock-height Ram 4x4s from '94 to '02. The red part is the billet housing for the 11/4 ball stud that is way bigger than the stock junk that wore out while the truck was on the showroom floor. We wish we'd added this years ago. |
8. Finally, we loaded the...
8. Finally, we loaded the fresh steering system with PSC's recommended Royal Purple synthetic fluid (www.royalpurple.com). With all-new parts, the hydraulic system required bleeding all the air bubbles out of it. We did this by filling the pump reservoir, jacking the front wheels off the ground, starting the engine, cycling the steering wheel lock-to-lock a few times, topping off the fluid, and then cycling the wheel another 15 or 20 times.
For our truck, we chose the newest track-bar solution, which is from Rare Parts (www.rareparts.com). It uses a stock-type bar modified to include slight adjustability (our truck is stock height) with a threaded-on frame-end housing that is case-hardened and includes a ball joint that is 11/4 inches in diameter for a claimed 47 percent increase in the surface area of the wear components as compared to the stock design.
As for the steering-box repairs, we went with PSC Motorsports, whose beefy off-road boxes we've been happy with. The company offers a number of products for Jeep, Chevy, Ford, Suzuki, and Dodge applications, including ram-assist steering if you need it. We didn't. Our choice was the company's Extreme Duty steering box. More than a standard rebuild, they are honed and trued, and all the internal components are Magnaflux-inspected and are flow-tested before shipping. The Extreme line can be identified by the billet end caps. Our box is the light-valving model (PN SG-841MX), and as the company warned us, it has very light touch and very little road feel. We wanted old-school one-finger steering and we got it. For more of a stock feel, we could have used the standard Extreme Duty model (PN SG-841M). We also used the standard-displacement pump (PN 1390); a higher-flow pump (PN 1490) is available, though it's best for lower-rpm diesels and requires extra cooling. PSC offers those coolers as well as remote-reservoir options for extra capacity and bubble reduction. So now we're all dialed in with easy steering bliss and ready for more night wheeling-with the lights on.