That's interesting that about the bars. I'm wondering if the bars on the 03-09 Rams 1500s have the same issues? I know those trucks especially the 4x4s from new always seems to sit lower in the front and the popular thing back then was to crank up the torsion bars to level out the truck. Hopefully, the used bars work out for you. As for finding a 97-04 Dakota, well good luck. A lot of them were scrapped due to rust, transmission issues, and the 4.7L costing too much to fix. I thought about a clean one a couple of years back and finding decent ones these days are few and far between.