My experiences thus far with 3.6 Pentastar Ram 1500

BenchTest · Jul 6, 2024

Atcer2018 said:
I too wish there was some control over the e-fan system. A pusher fan sounds complicated. I’ll be watching this thread if you elect to try such a project.

I dropped in a 10" Hayden (Imperial) slimline yesterday. Removed grill, removed AGS framework for access. Mounted with a bracket system I made from readily available parts. Drilled/tapped mounting holes in upper and lower cross braces (easy, lightweight metal). Mount is solid. Didn't run a relay (somebody is gonna cry about that) as the fan is rated for 5.4A, so I just ran an interrupt/toggle rated for 20A. Pulled power with a fuse tap, from a not used Heated Power Seats circuit. Loomed and routed all the wires. Stuck a toggle in the footwell area, out of sight, but easily reachable. Looks like it was factory installed minus the brackets. Fan is rated at 650CFM. Initial tests yield decent results. It definitely slows down the rate at which the heat builds. As the heat soak increases, so do running temps, but at a much slower rate. I might elect to drop in a relay and add another 650CFM 10" on the opposite side if this doesn't do it's intended purpose. I'm into the project for about $115 for parts/materials. I will continue to test. Hindsight, I probably should have just started with dual 10" fans on custom brackets. I think the net result would be better. Time will tell.

BenchTest · Jul 20, 2024

YAY - it's water pump time. I thoroughly enjoy draining antifreeze (for the 3rd time on this truck). 84k and it's seeping down the front. I can always count on something needing to be worked on.

Yardbird · Jul 20, 2024

BenchTest said:
YAY - it's water pump time. I thoroughly enjoy draining antifreeze (for the 3rd time on this truck). 84k and it's seeping down the front. I can always count on something needing to be worked on.

That don't make me feel any better about my '18-3.6. I just turned 36k yesterday.

BenchTest · Jul 20, 2024

Yardbird said:
That don't make me feel any better about my '18-3.6. I just turned 36k yesterday.

It wasn't a hard job. I'm just still being bitter about 2 oil filter housing jobs in as many miles, along with all the other stupid piddly little things that I've had to do. This truck gets babied and has never towed a damn thing, lives in the 750-4K RPM range, doesn't run hot. I've driven over 1.5M miles doing service work and another 750K personal miles in my driving years. I can cross reference a LOT of vehicles within my prior service fleets to go along with that. I don't ever recall needing a water pump on something prior to 200K miles (except maybe some older carb'd small block Chevy's that got driven hard). I had a 6.2 Ford in a F-250 Super Duty that I drove H.A.R.D. Running max weight turning 4k-5k RPM's regularly going through mountain grades for 200k miles. Wore out an idler pulley and tensioner, some tires and brakes, but never a water pump

Talked to a buddy who turned 524K miles on his 4.6L Ford pickup, and guess what, his original water pump made 270K prior to dying. I'd like to subscribe to "maybe it was a fluke" but I've read quite a few instances of the water pumps failing under 100K on the Pentastars. And the fact that every parts house in town has them IN STOCK with some having multiple, sounds like a common failure. Again, it's not that it was a hard job, it was that I had to replace it so early. While I'm being bitter - does it really need 3 different size bolts with 3 different torque specs? Over engineered. I'll get over it. Hopefully before the next poorly engineered/executed part fails. I really want to like my truck, but about the time I start to settle into "ok, think we've got it all done now and I'm feeling like this is a solid truck", something fails. $48K for a new BASE model of this truck... same engine. Same equipment. Ha. Pass. Alright, I'll wrap this up now. Going to try and stop smelling antifreeze and enjoy the rest of the night.

aszumilo · Jul 20, 2024

@BenchTest I feel your pain. Did 2 water pumps on my 96 Ram at about 90k miles. Got a bad one, it went out about 5k miles later. 2nd one was still on the truck when I traded it in at 163k miles. Never replaced the water pump on my 04 Ram (it even had the original alternator and starter). It lasted until I wrecked it at 202k miles. Had that truck 17 years. My 2011 I had to do the water pump at about 135k miles. It's sometimes hit or miss with parts.

84k miles anymore isn't horrible. I would expect it to last a bit longer, but, overall I don't think it is too bad these days.

As far as how many water pumps the parts stores carry, it is all a matter of numbers. There is a lot of pentastars on the road, so, makes sense for them to carry more. Back in the old days, parts stores carried more parts for small block Chevys than any other make. Wasn't because they were necessarily bad, just more of them on the road.

BenchTest · Jul 30, 2024

On today's episode... Did a trans pan/filter replacement. It was 15 mos and 30k miles ago that I did the last one. Instead of a Mopar unit this time, I did some research and found a ZF "kit". I figure if anybody knows the parts, it should be the manufacturer/designer. The kit comes with pan/filter combo and pan bolts. I did a side by side comparison between the Mopar unit and the ZF unit. Very similar in design, but what I did notice is that the ZF unit had magnets in just one end of the pan whereas the Mopar unit has magnets on the end and near the filter intake. The filter intake seems slightly larger on the FZ unit. The filter overall area is larger in length and width on the ZF unit as well. Couldn't for certain distinguish if the media thickness was the same, but it appeared so. The contour of the bottom of the pan is slightly different on the ZF. The engagement area of the filter seal (o-ring) sets at the same depth as the Mopar.

Things of note on the fluid/pan change. On my first service at 54K, the magnets had the usual buildup that I'd consider normal for an auto trans. On this change at 84k, there was slightly less buildup, again, what I'd consider normal wear. The fluid that was in it during this change was a mix of roughly 2/3 Mopar OEM fluid (from factory fill) and 1/3 Valvoline Maxlife (only able to swap 5.5-ish qts during a filter/fluid replacement). It was noticeably more viscous than straight Maxlife. I don't remember on my prior service if the OEM fluid was as viscous as what I saw today. Probably irrelevant, just something I noticed. Torqued the bolts in the first sequence at 45 inch lbs. Then final sequenced at 88 inch lbs. Followed the ZF procedure and pushed it to filled capacity with Maxlife. Leak checked it sitting in my garage while I cleaned up from the surgery. Threw it down the road about 25 miles at various speeds. No discernable difference in shift behavior or operating temps. I'll call that a win.

I might do a drain/refill at the next 30K mark just to get a bit more OEM fluid out, or I might sit on it for 50K. We shall see.

One other thing - That MaxLife *STINKS* That's the most rancid smelling ATF I've been around in my 30+ years of automotive. I've used Maxlife in several vehicles and I don't remember it smelling this funky. Maybe I'm getting old and things smell different, or they changed their flavors to GMO-engineered, gluten-free, haggis-based materials.

+ adding another note for those that may be doing this service... I ended up with 4 layers of 2x4's to create a platform to set my jackstands on to get the transmission case levelled. So, 4 layers of 2x4's, jackstands at their top reach, and my service jack staying resident under the differential housing as backup, I was almost at the right height to get the trans level. To get it fully level, I ended up airing down the front tires to make up the difference. Seems silly, but it got the job done. I felt better about doing that than making another layer of 2x4's to get the a$$ end up higher. That my friends takes longer than the rest of the entire service. Playing the level game. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

Different Drummer · Jul 31, 2024

BenchTest said:
On today's episode... Did a trans pan/filter replacement. It was 15 mos and 30k miles ago that I did the last one. Instead of a Mopar unit this time, I did some research and found a ZF "kit". I figure if anybody knows the parts, it should be the manufacturer/designer. The kit comes with pan/filter combo and pan bolts. I did a side by side comparison between the Mopar unit and the ZF unit. Very similar in design, but what I did notice is that the ZF unit had magnets in just one end of the pan whereas the Mopar unit has magnets on the end and near the filter intake. The filter intake seems slightly larger on the FZ unit. The filter overall area is larger in length and width on the ZF unit as well. Couldn't for certain distinguish if the media thickness was the same, but it appeared so. The contour of the bottom of the pan is slightly different on the ZF. The engagement area of the filter seal (o-ring) sets at the same depth as the Mopar.

Things of note on the fluid/pan change. On my first service at 54K, the magnets had the usual buildup that I'd consider normal for an auto trans. On this change at 84k, there was slightly less buildup, again, what I'd consider normal wear. The fluid that was in it during this change was a mix of roughly 2/3 Mopar OEM fluid (from factory fill) and 1/3 Valvoline Maxlife (only able to swap 5.5-ish qts during a filter/fluid replacement). It was noticeably more viscous than straight Maxlife. I don't remember on my prior service if the OEM fluid was as viscous as what I saw today. Probably irrelevant, just something I noticed. Torqued the bolts in the first sequence at 45 inch lbs. Then final sequenced at 88 inch lbs. Followed the ZF procedure and pushed it to filled capacity with Maxlife. Leak checked it sitting in my garage while I cleaned up from the surgery. Threw it down the road about 25 miles at various speeds. No discernable difference in shift behavior or operating temps. I'll call that a win.

I might do a drain/refill at the next 30K mark just to get a bit more OEM fluid out, or I might sit on it for 50K. We shall see.

One other thing - That MaxLife *STINKS* That's the most rancid smelling ATF I've been around in my 30+ years of automotive. I've used Maxlife in several vehicles and I don't remember it smelling this funky. Maybe I'm getting old and things smell different, or they changed their flavors to GMO-engineered, gluten-free, haggis-based materials.

+ adding another note for those that may be doing this service... I ended up with 4 layers of 2x4's to create a platform to set my jackstands on to get the transmission case levelled. So, 4 layers of 2x4's, jackstands at their top reach, and my service jack staying resident under the differential housing as backup, I was almost at the right height to get the trans level. To get it fully level, I ended up airing down the front tires to make up the difference. Seems silly, but it got the job done. I felt better about doing that than making another layer of 2x4's to get the a$$ end up higher. That my friends takes longer than the rest of the entire service. Playing the level game. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

You mention a possible drain and fill in the future. Does the pan/filter assembly supplied in the ZF kit have a drain valve? The OEM pan /filter I used does not have a drain valve which prevents me from doing a simple drain and fill. Any part numbers for the ZF kit?

BenchTest · Jul 31, 2024

Different Drummer said:
You mention a possible drain and fill in the future. Does the pan/filter assembly supplied in the ZF kit have a drain valve? The OEM pan /filter I used does not have a drain valve which prevents me from doing a simple drain and fill. Any part numbers for the ZF kit?

D35010K is the ZF kit #. Available on EBay from a couple of reputable transmission supply houses that are ZF Authorized dealers. It does have a drain plug. As you stated, my Mopar unit did not have a drain (the factory one did, but the replacement I got 30k miles back did not, as a "revision" from Mopar). ZF does have two different kits, one spec'd for V6 trucks and the other for Hemi trucks. Not sure what the difference is. The P/N I supplied here references the V6 unit. Again, don't know what the difference is.

Different Drummer · Jul 31, 2024

BenchTest said:
D35010K is the ZF kit #. Available on EBay from a couple of reputable transmission supply houses that are ZF Authorized dealers. It does have a drain plug. As you stated, my Mopar unit did not have a drain (the factory one did, but the replacement I got 30k miles back did not, as a "revision" from Mopar). ZF does have two different kits, one spec'd for V6 trucks and the other for Hemi trucks. Not sure what the difference is. The P/N I supplied here references the V6 unit. Again, don't know what the difference is.

thanks

BenchTest · Aug 22, 2024

Sitting on 85K. Crawled up under the truck to examine my bleeder ports on all four calipers in preparation for a brake fluid exchange. Thought I'd be proactive and hit all of them with some penetrating oil so as not to fight with them when it was time to do the job. Got both rears done. Moved up to the front, did the passenger side. As I'm sliding over to do the driver side, I see the undercarriage and wheel well slathered in grease. Yeah, outer CV boot decided to retire and puke all the grease all over. SOB. SOB. 6 years old and 85k. Poor. Then I made myself feel better by saying "well, it lives in the Rust Belt. It's subjected to extreme cold and fairly high summer heat, and salt. I guess it's not THAT bad." Joints are still tight. No discernible slop in them. No noise. Just rotted out boot. Started looking for replacement boots. All I could find was MOPAR. $90 for an inner and outer boot (because I'm not pulling a CV shaft and doing just a single boot). Now, keeping in mind, I just inspected these boots about 3 or 4 months prior and didn't see any actual holes/perforations in them and no signs of leaking. I decided to re-inspect the passenger side. Guess what? Little micro tears are starting on that outer boot. Hmm. I started shopping local parts houses for assemblies. If I have to tear down the front end to regrease/reboot the CV shaft, at 85K miles, I'm just going ahead and replacing whole units so that I'm not doing the job again in the near future. Local parts houses ranged from $185 to $210, with respect to their in-house brands. The reviews for all the local options were poor. Early failure of joints, boots failing, and lots of warranty replacements due to premature failure. I looked at my favorite online parts house, RockAuto. $76 for the HD versions with specific boots made for cold weather/harsh climate usage (per their claims, never have tried that variety). Supposedly these units are beefier and better suited for "the climate" per the manufacturer's literature. Decided to get sway bar bushings and end links since I'll be disturbing that area anyway. Threw a couple of axle seals on the order as well. I don't feel like pulling axles again later when the original seals leak in 5k miles. I got all of that, OVERNIGHTED, and still came out cheaper than local option by $270. Anybody want to guess what I'm doing this weekend? LOL. Curious to see what size the axle nut actually is. I've read documentation and watched several videos trying to figure out what size it is. I've read/heard claims of 35mm and 36mm. I didn't have either of those sizes on hand to verify while I had the wheel off. I found an Amazon supplier that had an "axle/spindle nut kit" that had both sizes (5 total sizes), 1/2" drive CrMO steel, on sale, and next day by 11AM, delivered for $29. That showed up. Looks like nice tooling. We'll see once the impact does it's thing. Hopefully no rounded off nuts or broken sockets. Factory torque spec is 185/ftlbs + 6 years of midwest exposure

Atcer2018 · Aug 22, 2024

BenchTest said:
Sitting on 85K. Crawled up under the truck to examine my bleeder ports on all four calipers in preparation for a brake fluid exchange. Thought I'd be proactive and hit all of them with some penetrating oil so as not to fight with them when it was time to do the job. Got both rears done. Moved up to the front, did the passenger side. As I'm sliding over to do the driver side, I see the undercarriage and wheel well slathered in grease. Yeah, outer CV boot decided to retire and puke all the grease all over. SOB. SOB. 6 years old and 85k. Poor. Then I made myself feel better by saying "well, it lives in the Rust Belt. It's subjected to extreme cold and fairly high summer heat, and salt. I guess it's not THAT bad." Joints are still tight. No discernible slop in them. No noise. Just rotted out boot. Started looking for replacement boots. All I could find was MOPAR. $90 for an inner and outer boot (because I'm not pulling a CV shaft and doing just a single boot). Now, keeping in mind, I just inspected these boots about 3 or 4 months prior and didn't see any actual holes/perforations in them and no signs of leaking. I decided to re-inspect the passenger side. Guess what? Little micro tears are starting on that outer boot. Hmm. I started shopping local parts houses for assemblies. If I have to tear down the front end to regrease/reboot the CV shaft, at 85K miles, I'm just going ahead and replacing whole units so that I'm not doing the job again in the near future. Local parts houses ranged from $185 to $210, with respect to their in-house brands. The reviews for all the local options were poor. Early failure of joints, boots failing, and lots of warranty replacements due to premature failure. I looked at my favorite online parts house, RockAuto. $76 for the HD versions with specific boots made for cold weather/harsh climate usage (per their claims, never have tried that variety). Supposedly these units are beefier and better suited for "the climate" per the manufacturer's literature. Decided to get sway bar bushings and end links since I'll be disturbing that area anyway. Threw a couple of axle seals on the order as well. I don't feel like pulling axles again later when the original seals leak in 5k miles. I got all of that, OVERNIGHTED, and still came out cheaper than local option by $270. Anybody want to guess what I'm doing this weekend? LOL. Curious to see what size the axle nut actually is. I've read documentation and watched several videos trying to figure out what size it is. I've read/heard claims of 35mm and 36mm. I didn't have either of those sizes on hand to verify while I had the wheel off. I found an Amazon supplier that had an "axle/spindle nut kit" that had both sizes (5 total sizes), 1/2" drive CrMO steel, on sale, and next day by 11AM, delivered for $29. That showed up. Looks like nice tooling. We'll see once the impact does it's thing. Hopefully no rounded off nuts or broken sockets. Factory torque spec is 185/ftlbs + 6 years of midwest exposure

Would you happen to have that Amazon axle nut kit link handy? I’m at about the same mileage but live in the mid Atlantic where winter consists of mostly rain and the ability to wear shorts and a sweatshirt all winter. They occasionally salt our roads when inclement conditions are forecast but it washes away quickly with the rains. Just want to be prepared for the eventual replacement and at that price pre planning is a no brainer.

Please let us know what the RockAuto parts are like for future reference. I’m guessing you’re not going to Disney World this weekend lol

BenchTest · Aug 22, 2024

Search "higehio 1/2 inch" and it'll come up. Guessing that's the manufacturer's name (or maybe importer). Currently $27.

Hopefully your boots last longer. I don't like spending the time or money doing these (at such low miles), but I suspect I'd be more upset losing a CV axle going down the road or while in the back country. I'm headed into the mountains soon, so I guess I should be "happy" this is happening now and not then.

Atcer2018 · Aug 22, 2024

BenchTest said:
Search "higehio 1/2 inch" and it'll come up. Guessing that's the manufacturer's name (or maybe importer). Currently $27.

Hopefully your boots last longer. I don't like spending the time or money doing these (at such low miles), but I suspect I'd be more upset losing a CV axle going down the road or while in the back country. I'm headed into the mountains soon, so I guess I should be "happy" this is happening now and not then.

Thank you, found and purchased along with the missing 1/4 drive deep 10mm socket lol

Good luck with the repair. Sad that OEM didn’t last longer. My daughter’s twelve year old civic with 260k still has the original CV axles and boots. Too bad Ram can’t provide the same.

BenchTest · Aug 22, 2024

Atcer2018 said:
Thank you, found and purchased along with the missing 1/4 drive deep 10mm socket lol

Good luck with the repair. Sad that OEM didn’t last longer. My daughter’s twelve year old civic with 260k still has the original CV axles and boots. Too bad Ram can’t provide the same.

No problem. Will report back on how they work. I plan on starting the teardown tomorrow afternoon in anticipation of the parts arriving.

I've been chatting with some fellow wrench-turner friends that have vehicles with 200-300K miles on their trucks (GM and Ford). They still have factory CVs in them with factory boots. I've been reading a lot of stories about the RAM CVs failing right around 100k. Also read that a good portion of the aftermarket options fail within a year or 5k miles. Not just boot failures, but actual joint failures. And these are supposedly NEW as opposed to remans. I don't want to believe that. I can't imagine a CV failing so soon unless you're in 4LO pulling a tree up a hill for 5K miles.

Hopefully these "heavy duty" units I bought will serve their purpose. Time will tell.

star_deceiver · Aug 23, 2024

BenchTest said:
Sitting on 85K. Crawled up under the truck to examine my bleeder ports on all four calipers in preparation for a brake fluid exchange. Thought I'd be proactive and hit all of them with some penetrating oil so as not to fight with them when it was time to do the job. Got both rears done. Moved up to the front, did the passenger side. As I'm sliding over to do the driver side, I see the undercarriage and wheel well slathered in grease. Yeah, outer CV boot decided to retire and puke all the grease all over. SOB. SOB. 6 years old and 85k. Poor. Then I made myself feel better by saying "well, it lives in the Rust Belt. It's subjected to extreme cold and fairly high summer heat, and salt. I guess it's not THAT bad." Joints are still tight. No discernible slop in them. No noise. Just rotted out boot. Started looking for replacement boots. All I could find was MOPAR. $90 for an inner and outer boot (because I'm not pulling a CV shaft and doing just a single boot). Now, keeping in mind, I just inspected these boots about 3 or 4 months prior and didn't see any actual holes/perforations in them and no signs of leaking. I decided to re-inspect the passenger side. Guess what? Little micro tears are starting on that outer boot. Hmm. I started shopping local parts houses for assemblies. If I have to tear down the front end to regrease/reboot the CV shaft, at 85K miles, I'm just going ahead and replacing whole units so that I'm not doing the job again in the near future. Local parts houses ranged from $185 to $210, with respect to their in-house brands. The reviews for all the local options were poor. Early failure of joints, boots failing, and lots of warranty replacements due to premature failure. I looked at my favorite online parts house, RockAuto. $76 for the HD versions with specific boots made for cold weather/harsh climate usage (per their claims, never have tried that variety). Supposedly these units are beefier and better suited for "the climate" per the manufacturer's literature. Decided to get sway bar bushings and end links since I'll be disturbing that area anyway. Threw a couple of axle seals on the order as well. I don't feel like pulling axles again later when the original seals leak in 5k miles. I got all of that, OVERNIGHTED, and still came out cheaper than local option by $270. Anybody want to guess what I'm doing this weekend? LOL. Curious to see what size the axle nut actually is. I've read documentation and watched several videos trying to figure out what size it is. I've read/heard claims of 35mm and 36mm. I didn't have either of those sizes on hand to verify while I had the wheel off. I found an Amazon supplier that had an "axle/spindle nut kit" that had both sizes (5 total sizes), 1/2" drive CrMO steel, on sale, and next day by 11AM, delivered for $29. That showed up. Looks like nice tooling. We'll see once the impact does it's thing. Hopefully no rounded off nuts or broken sockets. Factory torque spec is 185/ftlbs + 6 years of midwest exposure

Thanks for the reminder. Been meaning to do this for a while. Everythings still good. No play between the diff outputs and CV.

BenchTest · Aug 23, 2024

@star_deceiver - yeah, good idea to soak those boots with silicone occasionally and keep them pliable. Hopefully that will keep your bacon and eggs from sticking to them as well

BenchTest · Aug 23, 2024

Well, I did the CV axle swaps today. Everything went as planned, mostly. @Atcer2018 - That socket said paid for itself with just this project. My axle nuts were 35mm (those sockets are 12 point and it fit PRECISELY). The axle nuts came right off. Barely had to exercise the electric impact to back them off. Tie rod nuts came right off. Ball joint nuts backed right off. The three places that gave me fits were the driver's side axle to wheel bearing (unit bearing) splined joint and both bottom ball joints. That spline joint was good and seized on the driver's side. Passengers side slide right out. Those lower damn ball joints however, wanted to STAY with that knuckle/spindle. I ended up putting some heat to them and a 3lb maul. That finally convinced them to separate. No issues separating the CV shafts from the intermediate shafts. A few slight taps with the maul and they slid right off. Lock rings were in good shape. Intermediate shafts stayed in the differential so I ended up not replacing the diff axle seals.

While I was down there gyrating everything around, I went ahead and replaced sway bar end links and sway bar mount bushings. The sway bar mount bushings had some wear, but not bad. Where the end link stud passes through the sway bar, that portion of the stud was seriously worn. I was surprised to see how much metal had worn down in that area. Glad I changed them. The bushings on the original end links had some dry rot and retained compression, but weren't in awful condition. Again, glad I swapped them. I will note that there seems to be 3 or 4 different sizes of sway bars used on these trucks, so if you plan to order them, take a micrometer and measure your bar prior to ordering.

I started at 11:00AM and finished clean-up at 6:45PM. There was a 30 minute lunch break in there mandated by the warden and a couple of 15 minute rehydration sessions. The first one took the bulk of the time. Fighting that stuck spline and lower ball joint ate up a good portion of it. Everything was pre-soaked with penetrating oil and I feel like that helped quite a bit.

Atcer2018 · Aug 24, 2024

BenchTest said:
Well, I did the CV axle swaps today. Everything went as planned, mostly. @Atcer2018 - That socket said paid for itself with just this project. My axle nuts were 35mm (those sockets are 12 point and it fit PRECISELY). The axle nuts came right off. Barely had to exercise the electric impact to back them off. Tie rod nuts came right off. Ball joint nuts backed right off. The three places that gave me fits were the driver's side axle to wheel bearing (unit bearing) splined joint and both bottom ball joints. That spline joint was good and seized on the driver's side. Passengers side slide right out. Those lower damn ball joints however, wanted to STAY with that knuckle/spindle. I ended up putting some heat to them and a 3lb maul. That finally convinced them to separate. No issues separating the CV shafts from the intermediate shafts. A few slight taps with the maul and they slid right off. Lock rings were in good shape. Intermediate shafts stayed in the differential so I ended up not replacing the diff axle seals.

While I was down there gyrating everything around, I went ahead and replaced sway bar end links and sway bar mount bushings. The sway bar mount bushings had some wear, but not bad. Where the end link stud passes through the sway bar, that portion of the stud was seriously worn. I was surprised to see how much metal had worn down in that area. Glad I changed them. The bushings on the original end links had some dry rot and retained compression, but weren't in awful condition. Again, glad I swapped them. I will note that there seems to be 3 or 4 different sizes of sway bars used on these trucks, so if you plan to order them, take a micrometer and measure your bar prior to ordering.

I started at 11:00AM and finished clean-up at 6:45PM. There was a 30 minute lunch break in there mandated by the warden and a couple of 15 minute rehydration sessions. The first one took the bulk of the time. Fighting that stuck spline and lower ball joint ate up a good portion of it. Everything was pre-soaked with penetrating oil and I feel like that helped quite a bit.

Eight hours including breaks is quite good. Those lower ball joints are stubborn! At least they can be beat to death if replacing. What I dread is anything splined. Always the fear of damage to a part that needs to be reused.

Did you replace the wheel bearings? what type of sway bar bushings did you use? Rubber or urethane? Brand of endlinks?

BenchTest · Aug 24, 2024

Atcer2018 said:
Eight hours including breaks is quite good. Those lower ball joints are stubborn! At least they can be beat to death if replacing. What I dread is anything splined. Always the fear of damage to a part that needs to be reused.

Did you replace the wheel bearings? what type of sway bar bushings did you use? Rubber or urethane? Brand of endlinks?

I kept the factory installed bearings in place. I checked for end play prior to removing the wheels to start the project. No discernable play. While I had everything apart, I examined them as well. Everything appeared to be in order. And to your point, I reinstalled the lug nuts when I was beating the spline like it owed me money. I didn't want to take a chance and ding a lug with the 3lb maul. I did good and never made contact with anything unintended. I used Mevotech OEM grade on bushings and links. They are labeled as "natural rubber".

One thing to add - today I took the truck on a 50 +/- mile road trip, purposely taking a known rough road. I came home and went back around to check torque specs. I had one lower ball joint that must have settled/seated on that trip, as it failed to click off. I backed the nut off and re-torqued it. Will check it again in a couple of hundred miles just to make sure. It was only off by about a 45 degree swing before it clicked off, but that's enough to make me think it settled. These are torque + 90 degrees on lower and torque + 180 degrees on upper. Silly $hit in my opinion. My American brain says "why not just give me a higher ft/lb torque value and let's be done with it???" Get your European specs off my truck

My experiences thus far with 3.6 Pentastar Ram 1500

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