Front crossmember loose.......

[LOGANSTANFORTH]

anyone had the front cross member bolts work themselves loose or fall out?? my dad said my 93 was making a popping noise in the front and we thought it was the idler arm loose (my 90 had a pop and that is what it was) and my brother was underneath it looking and noticed the frame moving around when he steered the truck........so he got 1/2 inch grade 8's and put them in........

[cougar]

Yep, mine is at a frame shop as we speek. Also check leaf spring bushings and steering box mount plate.

[1ST(X2)]

Yep, I check my crossmember bolts every time I'm under there.

My 92 D350 has had a mysterious intermittant pop sound going on for a few years. Had the frame checked, completely rebuilt the front end... (see ball joint seperated thread)

It was finally tracked down to cowl cracks visable thru the door hinge area. Seems to be a common but harmless (annoying) problem.
Dodge had a fix for it, if I recall, that envolved removing the fender, drilling stops at the ends of the cracks and rivoting a new panel over the area. I left mine alone.

[LOGANSTANFORTH]

right now the truck is setting with no intercooler or front crossmember in it......dad had my brother pull it out (i.e. beat rivets out with chisel and hammer) and take it down to the race shop and have it welded all up cause it had a couple small cracks, the front strut rod mounts at one point have been worked on also from the bushing going bad, im putting all new bolts in it and lock tighting them and having a weld bead ran on all of them so they WILL NOT come loose, i told him once that is done to check the plate on the steering box, if thats broke ill replace the plate now but the frame is getting plated and gusseted when i get home from iraq in June.....so yeah....this sucks but i knew going into it that this truck may have problems.....

[LOGANSTANFORTH]

my brother had to drill the big bolts out to 5/8 and installed grade 8 hardened bolts with Nylocks, the rest of the bolts are 7/16 grade 8 hardened bolts with red loctite.....

where can i get new front rubber body mount bushings at????

[PToombs]

Grade 8's might be a bad idea. Most places I have seen bolts holding a frame or trailer hitch or anything like that it's a grade 5 bolt. Their reasoning is if you get in an accident, the bolts will stretch and give a little, as opposed to breaking off and parts flying around.

[LOGANSTANFORTH]

injection pump went bad about 2 days ago......so yeah......thats another 250 bucks spent......