Sooooooo bought this 4Runner and the whole front end has been rebuilt. I was inspecting the job and found this (see pictures) looks a little dangerous. Upside is the arm should come off easily enough! Any thoughts?

 

Are you worried about the gap between the pitman arm and the steering box case? Don't be. The splines are tapered and the pitman arm is tapered to match. When that big nut is tightened down nothing is going anywhere. If the nut is tight then you're good.

 

Mine has the same gap. You're fine.

 

Normal. What's not normal is all that PS fluid all over the place

 

She absolutely pours power steering fluid. I don't even know where to start. For now I just took the belt off of it and muscle the steering wheel. Its the only thing on the whole dang truck that leaks!

 

Start by cleaning it off and find where the leak is at. "Manual" steering with a power steering box is more laborious than regular manual steering.

 

Dude those cotter pins look awful straight. Are they bent correctly and I'm just not seeing it?

 

the gap seems a little larger than on mine, maybe try tightening the nut down. make sure its not cross threaded.

 

They don't look correct to me either. The tie rod cotter pin on the center link looks like it's not even bent at all in the pic. Technically speaking, you're supposed to bend one end of the pin up over the head of the bolt and trim the other so it's not protruding so far from the castle nut. I'm guilty of not always doing it right either http://aviationmiscmanuals.tpub.com/...04-23-6_87.htm

 

You are both correct in your observations! I bent them while I was checking the work along with making sure everything else was done correctly.

 

My PS pump leaked pretty badly when I got my truck too. I bought a $10-15 rebuild kit and fixed it easily enough. Once you wrangle it out and get it in a vise it comes apart really easy. Maybe took me a couple hours start to finish.