2004 dodge ram 1500 2WD front end making a metal on metal sound going over small surface bumps like rail road tracks. I have had trhe front end inspected 3 times for the possible cause. All garages tell me my front end is good and tight. There is no poping noise when turning or going forward or back wards. Shocks replaced last saturday. Is this possibly the sway bar. I have spent hours underneath it looking for any indications that things are moving out of place or indication of metal hitting. Replaced the brakes when i did the shocks and calipers look fine. It seems to be in the front right. Truck has no vibrations, and has never pulled to one side or the other. Tires are 3 months old and ones removed had very even wear. Can anyone point me in the right direction. Its driving me insaine. I hate rattles!

check steering ball joints for wear. Check for loose wheel bearings. Check front end suspension

Check for leaking rear shocks or a loose sway bar.

ABS Braking System being activated for some reason

The struts may be going out. A good shop will inspect those for you at little or no cost.

strutts bad

Hello and welcome to FixYa!
When you are hitting the rail road tracks, the connectors on the throttle body may have been moving. As a first course of action, I strongly suggest that you secure the connectors, be sure that they are properly inserted to lock.
You may need to secure the air cleaner too, make sure that it's not moving. Be sure that there's nothing hitting the wirings as well that can cause the car's sensor to move. These are common issues when the sensor connectors are being moved.
Hope this helps and thank you for using FixYa! Have a good one!

The bumps do initiate the shaking. When my 2006 Ram 2500 4x4 started shaking, I had just had it aligned that morning. A month or so before that alignment, my passenger side outer tie-rod broke while driving down a rock road. I replaced it with a heavy duty MOOG tie-rod end. Anyway, the same day I had it aligned I was driving back home from a job and towing my bobcat behind me. I hit a bump and the truck did the "death wobble" with the front end shaking violently up and down in an alternating fashion (one tire in the air while one tire on the ground and then vice-versa). I changed the tires first (which were worn-out 305/75/17 mud tires). Since the day I bought the truck new in Jan. 2006, I've had larger tires on the truck than the tiny 235/75/17s that came with it and I've done a lot of heavy towing with it and never had a problem until this alignment was done at Sears. I;m still trying to figure out if it was the alignment specs that they used or if the problem coincidentally started that same day. I also changed the steering stabilizer. Neither the new tires nor the stabilizer/damper helped the problem. So I changed the other outer tie-rod end and the upper and lower ball joints (all MOOG with grease fittings). I turns out they were worn out. So, the truck no longer shakes violently up and down when I hit a bump. That problem seems to be in check. However, now when I hit a bump the truck's front end wobbles side-to-side. I can do a few things to recover from it. I can hit the brakes pretty hard and sudden (which can cause an accident on the interstate), or I can **** the steering wheel side-to-side a few times (from 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock) and that stops it immediately...until the next bump in the road. Also, if I let my foot off the accelerator just before hitting a bump and let the truck coast over it instead of power through it, sometimes the truck will ride over the bump without incident. I found out yesterday on a 5 1/2 hour road trip that if I did 80 to 90 miles per hour and powered through every road blemish, the truck rode fine...no shaking at all. I suppose the high speed forces the tires to stay straight when they hit a bump. Lastly, to confuse my problem solving attempts further, sometimes the truck rides like a cadillac (for an hour or so) at regular speeds and no matter what bumps I hit. Then without worning, the front end will loosen up and get that sloppy feeling again and the wobbling comes back at every bump...until the next time it feels like tightening up and driving right again. I have no idea what to do now. I'm going back to Sears today to have them check their alignment. Other than that, all I can think of is to change the rest of the steering components and check the steering box for malfunction. I hope someone can help all of us Dodge owners out off of the road tested info that I've just provided. Dodge doesn't seem to care to address the problems with their trucks front ends, and we need a solution before people get hurt or die. I was almost run over by an 18-wheeler trying to figure out how to handle the shake. I can't afford to buy another truck. So I need to fix this one so I can keep working. If anybody has a concrete solution to these problems, please let us know. I've read 20 different opinions from mechanics on these blogs, but nobody has said yet that they fixed someone's truck with these problems and have since heard from that customer and everything is still working fine. Opinions are helpful sometimes, but they're also confusing when they're conflicting.

most lkiely just the sway bar rubber bushing are noisy, replace them, if that doesn't cure the problem you may need upper control arm bushings, a front end shop should check them out before u do anything, u didn't state the miles on the truck or how it is driven, off road etc.

disconnect speed meter cable and see the difference.

I have a 2004 with the same problem. It is actually a defect on dodges behave. The steering box flexes on the frame when you hit a bump. Bd diesel puts out a steering box brace and a new track bar with the right geometry to fix it. I had replaced everything under my front end before i saw the article in off road adventures magazine. I contacted dodge and asked why this was not a safety recall. They said they no nothing about it and refused to help me. I called the National Highway Transportation Safety Board and filed a complaint. I suggest you do the same and anyone else who reads this. If you need to contact me email me at [email protected]. maybe we can get enough people to complain before someone dies from this.