maachine

do you guys know if the rack and pinion steering gear is adjustable or not?

my front end has developed some slop in it lately and my steering gear is the culprit

'02 tacoma 3.4L

slo6i

I know the newer tacos develop play in the collapsable linkage between the steering wheel and the steering box.

Ill see if i can find some more info on it. It happened to my buddies taco as well, we havent fixed it yet though. It involves tack welding.

Check this...
http://www.ttora.com/forum/showthread.php?t=161689

vital22re

iTrader: (2)

worn out rack bushings will make it sloppy as well.

maachine

i thought it was my tie rod ends so i checked those, and when i pushed and pulled on the wheels at 3 and 9, the steering gear and steering wheel shaft would spin easily then stop. its like a 1/4" to 1/2" of this "slop" in the gear. rebuild then?

i looked at the steering gear and didnt see anything that looked like its adjustable like most other steering gears have.

maachine

thanks for the thread. i checked it, a tiny bit of play. nothing that concerns me though. never experienced any popping noises either.

just for future reference. hanyes manual shows nothing about an adjustment. alldatapro.com doesnt either. alldatapro has the rebuild procedure for the rack and pinion. looks like a pain. cheaper than buying a whole new rack.... anyone ever done this before?

slo6i

when you say a tiny bit, remember that it gets multiplied by the steering rack. if you have 1/4" to 1/2", that's enough to make your truck wander. I dont think the popping noise is an every case symptom, cause my friends column doesnt pop either, there is a noticable amount of play in it however.

If you have the front wheels off the ground, and turn it full lock one way or the other, then try and push the tire back in towards centerline of the car, that would tell me that there is slop in the rack. If you have old ford pickup style slop in the steering wheel, I would check that steering shaft.

Just my 2c.

maachine

there is slop in the rack. no doubt in my mind. good idea to turn it to one side and see what it does. i'll try that out right now

maachine

ok. i messed with it a little bit more. i think it's the bushings. how much play is supposed to be in those bushings? i definitely have movement there.

i did what you said about turning it to one side, that definitely changed my mind about slop being in the steering gear. thanks for the knowledge guys. i'm also going to look into the steering linkage thread you gave me. cause eventually its bound to get worse. thanks again

slo6i

the only bushings that I can think that Vital22re is talking about are the mounting bushings or the balljoints that connect to your spindles. And he is right, if those are sloppy, then that would have similar symptoms. There should be no play in those at all as they are generally mounted directly to the chassis.

Im glad you were able to decypher my meaning, cause I just re-read what I posted and it made almost no sense to me... almost like giving instructions on how to bake an apple by by starting out with "turn the oven on to 425." and then ending them.

what I meant was turn to one side and act like you are checking a wheel bearing (by pushing top and bottom of the tire.) if you do the same thing on the forward and rearward edge of the tire, It stands to reason that, if there is slop in your rack, you would feel it there. meaning there is excessive backlash in the gearing. I highly doubt that is the case, but im sure stranger things have been known to happen. My bet is on the steering column.

It would be wise to check and make sure that the steering rack is secure as well though, just as an elimination-of-problems step.

maachine

its the mounting bushing on the drivers side. its moving around a bit when shaking the tire. what happened is my parents borrowed my truck for a while and never rotated the tires and they went to hell....the tires...not my parents. so my truck was vibrating like crazy when i got it back. i bought a round of 4 new tires. now i have this weird steering thing going on. which i'm assuming was caused by the bad tires. but it is an 11 year old truck with 130,000 miles on it. ˟˟˟˟ is starting to wear out.

maachine

just to update. the steering issue that you mentioned slo6i, the only time i notice it is when i'm holding the steering shaft with my hand and shaking the wheel with the other. when i'm driving i dont feel it at all......except when i'm going slow and hit bumps. i'll be doing that fix here shortly and thank you for pointing it out.

ARB1977

Buy some poly bushings from wheelers off road. There cheap. I did mine and it did help some. I do get annoying squeaks going over bumps now and they are greased. The joys of having poly bushings.

maachine

poly bushings for what? the steering rack?