toomster

Hello all, So here's the run down. I am an old hand with the 22re 4runners, and on the recommendation of a friend started looking at the 3.4 4runners. I found one needing some steering work for what I thought was a pretty good deal. I just had a chance to lay under it today and take a closer look at it. Here are pics of what I found. It looks like my rack seals are shot (fluid on the bottom of rack boots). My tie rod ends are gone, (guessing thats what they call the attachment point from the rack to the wheel). The bushing mounting my rack to the frame is gone. My bushings holding together my suspension A-frames are cracked or gone, but the most alarming thing I found was on the top drivers side of my suspension A-frame piece. The bushings don't look that bad, but as you can see in the picture the bolt looks crooked. When I found this the nut towards the firewall was backed off a few mm. I tightened it up but with how the bolt is sitting in there I am not sure if the bolt is bent, if so how do I get it out of there, or if a piece of the suspension mounting structure is bent where the bolt attaches the top A frame of the suspension to the frame. Anyone have any thoughts.

toomster

sorry guess I dont need dancing blocks in the middle there.

zetasig

I would start with a steering bushing kit from wheelers or somewhere similar. That will take care of a lot of the trashed bushings. well worth the 22 bucks.

http://www.wheelersoffroad.com/4runnerrackbushkit.htm

It looks like one of the CV boots may be torn, I would inspect the boot and see if thats the case. people go back and forth on rebuilding versus replacing with aftermarket, I just got an aftermarket CV with a lifetime warrenty for I think 100 bucks from Advance auto parts. They were pretty easy to put in. The first one I did took about 35 mins or so. start to finish. Much easier than old Landcruiser birfs...

As far as the other bushings, I have never heard of them corroding like that,I live in salt country and have a 97 as well with 150K on it and my bushings on the control arms looked fine.

I agree the tie rod boots are shot too. They sell replacements pretty cheap if the ends are okay, but the boots are just torn. 5 bucks or so.

toomster

Thanks for the recomendation on the cv boots. I did take a pretty good look at them and couldn't see any tears, I did see what looks like oil on the bottom of them, but couldnt see any cracks or tears. Have you changed out the bushings in the steering rack, if so I do need to completely remove the rack? Also has anyone found a good write up on replacing the seals for the rack, as the pics show I have quite a bit of fluid on the bottom of my rack boots. Guessing it's coming from the rack. thanks

zetasig

I did find a good write up for the steering bushings. No you dont need to remove the whole rack. I did my bushings in a few hours. Only because there was some rust/corosion issues I was facing.
These bushings did make a huge difference in the sloppy steering.

http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/mainte...ering_bushing/

I would replace those first. Then spray down the boots with some parts/brake cleaner. That should dry everything up so you can see where its coming from.

I had some seepage from the Drivers side CV seal. It was a 14 dollar part from the dealer. Take out the CV, use a seal puller, and then pop the new seal in. Nice and dry afterward.

I dont have the part number handy, but could post it up in a bit. (Provided that is the source of the leak)