How to Easy Install Steering Box Brace on Dodge Ram with Basic Tools

Today’s project is to install a new steering stabilizer brace on 2008 Dodge Ram 2500. This kit I got was made by Synergy Manufacturers, part number 8558-04.

Inside this kit, we get one-inch steering brace which is made out of two inches by two-inch square tubing and it’s got a quarter inch plate for all the mounting points.

Comes with a bearing that has a locking collar on it, and I will show you how to put together in a little bit, and it comes with this pitman arm bearing stud.

This thing is designed to screw on to the steering box, where the original nut used to be. And we have a bag of miscellaneous hardware. This kit seems pretty straightforward.

After we got our stabilizer now rotate out of the way, we have access to take our steering nut off. Now, we need to remove this nut but do not take the pitman arm off. The pitman’s arm needs to stay in place, only the nut needs to come off. That’s a pretty big socket. I don’t have one that actually fit it, so I’m actually going to use this adjustable wrench. Let me twist this thing right on off here.

So, now that we’ve got the original nut and lock washer off, we can go ahead and install this extension stuff that came in the kit. The kit also comes with a new lock washer that we have to use, and then we simply just thread this thing on to the steering box. This thing has to be threaded all the way up against the pitman’s arm, and we have to torque it to 185 foot-pounds. I don’t have a socket that’s actually going to fit this because it requires an extra super deep socket, so I’m going to be using a wrench. I’m just pulling my wrench, we’re going to hit man the crap out of this thing and hopefully get it up to about 185-foot-pounds.

The next thing we got to do is get our actual brace installed onto the truck. The kit comes with four new bolts for it, they’re longer than the ones you take you took out of it, and it has you double washer them. There are a flat washer and a lock washer on each of these bolts. We get them set up, I just took the brace and put it up in the position here and slit a bolt and the hold then. Now I can take this entire assembly and rotate it up as one piece to get everything bolted back in. So, once you get this bolted up there do not tighten the bolt yet, you still need to adjust this thing but we’ll just get them started for now.

I got our brace bolted up under the truck and it’s still loose which allows us to adjust this thing as we need to. I’ve also coated are studied with some anti-seize and hopes that the bearing won’t cease itself to the shaft in the future if I ever have to change it out.

Now we got to do is install our bearing itself. The bearing does have a grease fitting on it and I would recommend point in this towards the front of your vehicle to make servicing it a lot easier in the future. But we’ll just line this thing up, kind of wiggle around a hair and it we’ll slide right up on there. The kit comes with some bolts, we can line the brace up to our holes and we’ll put this bolt in, and I’m going to install the bolts with the nuts on the top just because I think it looks a little better.

It doesn’t make any difference. Put them on hind if you want to, this is just my preferred way. Now, once you have these things installed both these bolts, we need to torque these bolts to 60 foot-pounds. And once this bearing mount is all tight and everything is good to go, we can then torque the bolts we screwed into the frame earlier to 40-foot pounds and then we can move on to the next step.

So now that we have all our hardware tight, the last thing to do is install this locking collar that comes with the bearing. This locking collar has an offset bore in it. And this is so it actually binds the bearing to the shaft the way it is impossible for that shaft to turn without taking the bearing with it. On this collar, there is one set screw and then it has another hole that does not have any threads into it.

So take this collar, set it up in this position, and then rotate it until it falls into place. Right about there. Maybe notice it only rotate so far. Sort of set this thing up in here, take a punch put it in the hole that does not have threads in it and then just gives it a little tap of the hammer. That just bound this locking collar up against that bearing and this shaft that way they’re now one piece. After you get that done, take an Allen key and we’re going to tighten down this set screw. That’s all there is to it, our brace is now installed.

All right guys, so I drove the truck around for a few days to give you some honest feedback on the steering brace. I do feel like the steering brace enhanced the steering of the truck, and made the steering field tighter, made the truck handle better and I get less feedback from the road while we’re driving it. Overall, I think it was a worthwhile upgrade. It was pretty easy to install you can do in a few hours in your driveway with some basic tools.