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GB2000
GenIII
3/04/2008
07:20:29
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 Subject: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Okay guys...need some help here...
Having some issues with my Dak and I can't afford to just toss money at it until my problems are solved. I noticed a while back that when I went to make a really tight turn such as pulling in/out of a tight parking lot, my front wheels felt as if they were hopping.
For an example of what I mean by "hopping"...think about how a 4wd vehicle feels when you try to take a turn while in 4wd and the pavement doesn't allow enough slippage causing the front end to jump up and down. It feels like that. ...except my truck is a 2wd. It only does this when making really tight turns.
I also can barely keep my truck in control if I hit a large bump/pot hole at medium/higher speeds. I was heading to school the other day and hit a railroad crossing in a 45mph zone at 45 (which I've done many times before) and I swear to God my truck jumped at least a foot SIDEWAYS. Thankfully nobody was beside me.
When I first noticed this problem I checked my balljoints and sure enough my uppers were really loose so I ordered new balljoints. We changed them out recently and all 4 balljoints were shot.
But my problem still hasn't gone away. Someone suggested lower control arm bushings. I can get a complete bushing kit on Ebay for $60 shipped, but before I dump $60 into it...are there any other things that could be causing this popping/hopping/loss of control over bumps?
I think my shocks are needing replaced...but would they cause those problems are just make them a bit more noticeable? I'm hoping to trade my truck in soon, but that's dependent on if I get my four-wheeler sold soon or not...and if I don't, I need my truck to be safe enough to take on a 400 mile+ trip next month.
So far the only suggestions I've received from another board is lower control arm bushings...so I'd like to hear if it could be anything else before I dump money into these. I got a buddy who runs an auto shop so I got the equipment to do it myself, but he's been too busy to check out my truck and find out what the cause is. I've also checked the new balljoints and they're good...definitely not causing this problem.
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miltonwaddums
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
3/04/2008
07:50:08
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
GB,
My initial guess is shocks or alignment (or both).
Shocks: good shocks will absorb a lot of that "hop" and will also eliminate that walk that occurs over bumps. My old 2wd walked over bumps (always scared the crap outta the old lady) and it got worse as the shocks got older. I've read really good things about edelbrock IAS shocks. You may cure a problem and greatly enhance your ride at the same time (for a price anyways).
Alignment (toe angle specifically): a good front end alignment (within factory specs) will allow the inner wheel of the turn (shorter radius) and the outer wheel of the turn (longer radius) take angles that won't be "fighting" each other on sharp turns. I can't really describe it well in a short forum post, but i hope you catch my drift. I know a lot of shops offer alignment checks for free (and then try to hard sell you an alignment). Might be a good place to start.
Good luck,
Jay
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TexasTodd
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
3/05/2008
16:52:31
|  RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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The RR crossing could be worn shocks,
but I'm not so sure the turning at low speeds, no bumps, being the shocks.
Let us know, please.
Good luck
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GB2000
GenIII
3/11/2008
06:21:57
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
Anybody else wanna chime in?
There's no way I'm gonna be able to get my truck sold before my trip so I'm gonna go ahead and dump some more cash into it to get it safe enough to make it there and back.
Right now I'm looking at purchasing new shocks...prolly just gonna get the cheapest name-brand package deal on Ebay. I can get 4 Monroe Monromatic's or something like that for $120 shipped. I'm sure they're not the greatest shocks in the world, but they prolly are better than the factory shocks...especially the factory shocks with 85k miles on em. Rear shocks were replaced a couple years ago with Gabriels, but I'll prolly go ahead and replace em again just so I have 4 matching shocks.
Also gonna buy a control arm bushing set off Ebay for $50. Anything else that it could be so I can price em? Ball joints are brand new so I don't think it's them.
Anyone know of a site that offers a package deal ordering 4+ Edelbrock IAS shocks? Would love to get them...but at nearly $80/shock, I can't afford them unless I can get a huge deal somewhere.
Oh yeah...anyone ever changed their control arm bushings? I have access to a lift, but was wonder how easy it is to do for somebody who's not a mechanic? My buddy who is a mechanic will be there to help out if necessary, but I'd like to do it myself if at all possible. How bout the front shocks? I know the rears were pretty simple...fronts the same way or what? Never messed with them either.
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TexasTodd
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
3/12/2008
12:18:18
|  RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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I have just about run everybody off from this site. I hope you get your truck fixed, but just realize that I will be now help at all.
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GB2000
GenIII
3/12/2008
15:33:40
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Doesn't matter...I post on multiple other forums...just gathering input from anyone and everyone.
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Josh
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
3/12/2008
18:21:32
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Tires hopping on tight turns is usually a toe in/out adjustment. In a tight turn, the tires are making different arcs of travel, but those arcs should describe the direction of travel of each tire. If toe is not set right, one of the tires will "scrub", or be dragged sideways a bit, during the turn. This scrubbing could be the outside or the inside tire, or could alternate between tires, depending on friction at each tire during the turn. Most likely it's the inside tire, as it unloads a bit during a turn.
Time for an alignment check.
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RadioMan
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
3/13/2008
04:32:41
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
Check the upper and lower ball joints plus
wheel bearings.
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pete
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
3/13/2008
10:45:35
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Tire pressure,swaybar link broken spring(2wd)alignment way out of speck shocks hmmmmmmmmm...
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GB2000
GenIII
3/13/2008
21:03:36
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Ball joints are new...replaced them recently.
We broke a sway bar link while replacing them...or rather, went to tighten the nut on the bottom of the link down (have to remove it to access one of the new balljoint bolts) and the ball in the link just spun inside the socket instead of tightening up...but I replaced that entire link a couple days later. The popping/hopping existed before we replaced the balljoints though...that's why I replaced them originally...
Checked the control arm bushings last night...they appear to be fine other than cracked from aging like all the other factory bushings.
Checked to see if there was any play in the wheels both with the truck on the ground and jacked up...didn't see any...so I don't think it's wheel bearings (I'm assuming if they're going, there's gonna be some play...at least thats what I think someone on DakotaUSA told me).
Alignment is a possibility...especially since the old balljoints had to be drilled/air hammered out and the new ones bolted in which may have changed the position of the wheel slightly...yet enough to throw the alignment off?
I know my shocks are bad...but would they also cause that hopping? I don't know enough about suspension to determine for sure...but here's what I thought it COULD be...anyone see any flaws in my logic?
Copied from my post on DakotaUSA:
"What I'm wondering...could this indeed be solely a bad shock issue? Originally I didn't think so...but here's my logic...let me know if I have a point or not. It doesn't do this at higher speeds...only lower speeds and usually at full-lock to either the right or left (either direction). However at high speeds I do have a shock issue consisting of major wheel hop when going over bumps. If the shocks are bad, they're gonna be soft and less responsive, correct? So if they're soft...when I crank the wheel fully either direction, the truck is gonna lean a lot more to that side since the shock isn't doing its job and helping to push it back up/even out the weight. That would then put all that extra weight from leaning onto the tire...and take a lot more weight off the opposite tire, causing them to hop/skip across the pavement a bit."
My current plan of action is to replace my front shocks (prolly gonna go with the KYB Gas-a-just's since I'm on a budget and I want something that'll keep my wheels planted)...rears are newer and still very stiff, but fronts are original and have almost 86,000 miles on them...they're due up for replacement. If I still have the hopping issues, I'll take the truck in for alignment and see if that fixes it...if not, maybe they'll catch the problem during their alignment procedure and let me know what's needing replaced so I don't risk misdiagnosing it and throwing money into the wrong parts.
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miltonwaddums
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
3/13/2008
21:52:15
|  RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
The reason it only occurs at low speed is thats the only time your steering wheel will be full lock. You will never be at full lock on the highway (unless you like to roll your truck). Full lock is when alignment problems can rear their ugly head. Never listen to a redneck that says an alignment check is nothing but letting go of the wheel and see if it pulls one way. Theres much more to alignment than that. Google suspension kinematics and start reading, there's some neat stuff in suspension engineering.
Doing ANY suspension work requires an immediate front end alignment. I would *almost* bet money that an alignment will cure the problem.
Shocks should definitely help the "walking" issue over bumps.
Jay
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GB2000
GenIII
3/13/2008
22:12:39
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
Awesome...thanks a lot Jay...hopefully that is my problem. I'm gonna get the shocks ordered soon...once they're installed, I'll take the truck in and get it aligned. I'll post an update once I get everything done.
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GB2000
GenIII
3/14/2008
03:38:21
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
Quick update...went ahead and ordered shocks. Decided to go with a set of Pro Comp ES3000's since I was able to get 4 for bout $30 more than 2 KYB Gas-a-justs and their reviews weren't too bad.
Hopefully they arrive soon and I'll get em installed and get my truck aligned...
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miltonwaddums
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
3/14/2008
06:42:42
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
Hey glad to hear it. You should notice quite a difference. Hope everything works out, keep us posted.
Jay
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Kowalski
GenIII
3/15/2008
07:07:42
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
Hopefully that wil solve your problem; but you should know that shocks don't push the vehicle back up. The springs or torsion bars do that, while the shocks add rebound and compression damping to the suspension. In other words, they simply control the rate at which that happens.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way
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9 bagel man
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
3/15/2008
11:24:08
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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I will also be changing my shocks in my 2002 QC being that they are original. My question is, do I need to get an alignment after just changing the shocks? I just had one a few weeks ago.
Thanks
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GB2000
GenIII
3/15/2008
18:00:13
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
Thanks for that correction Kowalski...I'm sure hoping it fixes my problem. If it doesn't, I'm hoping when I take it in for an alignment, then they'll catch the culprit...I'll make sure and take it to a place that inspects everything prior to just "aligning" it and calling it good. At least then they can be like, "Your passenger side lower control arm bushing is bad and we can't do this alignment..." and I'll only have to buy what's broken instead of buying a whole set hoping to fix it by replacing em all. Or find out one of my new balljoints is faulty and I wasted money on the bushings, etc. haha
9 bagel man,
I'm not a mechanic so don't take my answer as being "right"...but my $.02. You probably should "just in case"...but if you change em and it rides fine...I'm sure you could get away with not getting it done. Thing is...if your alignment is off and you don't notice it...you may go through your tires a lot faster than had you spent the extra money and got it done again.
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Kowalski
GenIII
3/16/2008
08:38:31
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
9 bagel man - changing shocks should not affect alignment. That's because of what I posted earlier - the shocks don't hold the front end up. They just control the rate at which the suspension does.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way
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GB2000
GenIII
3/18/2008
21:40:41
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
Alrighty...on top of everything mentioned above...here's some more symptoms it's been displaying. My buddy's gonna try and get it up on the lift tomorrow evening and we're gonna see if we can find the culprit then...but I've had the wheels off both sides (including tonight since things got worse) and checked everything I can think of and I'm still stumped. I think alignment may very well be part of the problem...and shocks definitely are...but I think there's something else that's just not as obvious. ...btw, still waiting for the shocks to come in.
Other symptoms:
When I go to park in a parking spot...when I pull into the spot and straighten the wheel while barely moving forward anymore, you hear a very audible popping sound. I believe I can also feel that pop in the steering wheel.
It's also doing it when I make standard turns now...like tonight I pulled out of the driveway at my school and turned left onto the 4 lane road (in other words, I made a very wide left turn) and I could STILL feel the front end hopping pretty badly. It was bad enough I drove to my buddy's shop to see if he was still there so he could check it out. He had cars on both lifts and was busy working on one, but went for a drive with me for a few minutes. Of course, when we took it for a drive, it quit doing it...figures, huh? Only problem we could get it to display was the bad shocks...he hit a bunch of rough patches of road and my truck was all over the place. When I described what it's doing though, he's pretty stumped.
Can somebody explain to me how to check the following parts properly since my own "visual inspections" apparently aren't catching things.
Tie rod ends (both inner and outer)
Control arm bushings
Wheel bearings
Ball joints
Sway bar links?
...anything else that could cause issues in the front end?
Oh yeah, the tread on my tires appears to be wearing faster on the outside of the tires than the inside/center (positive camber)...that an indication of serious alignment issues?
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GB2000
GenIII
3/18/2008
21:46:53
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Oh yeah...I mentioned wheel bearings to my buddy and he doesn't think they're the culprit. Someone on DakoktaUSA, I think, thought they might be the problem, but my buddy says as bad as my wheels are hopping, if the wheel bearings are bad, we should be hearing them making a TON of noise by now.
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TexasTodd
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
3/19/2008
08:42:51
| RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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Message:
This is not one of my posts:
TexasTodd
Dodge Dakota
JOIN HERE
3/12/2008
12:18:18
RE: Front End "Hopping" During Tight Turns
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I have just about run everybody off from this site. I hope you get your truck fixed, but just realize that I will be now help at all.
The Real TT
Apparently I hurt some feelings, and he can't get a life and insists on posting with my name, etc.
Oh, I'm soooo sorry I hurt your little
feelings.
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