I have a bad steering rack, It appears to be bad inner tie-rods, which I understand is non serviceable. Has anyone replaced these tie rods? How much and where do I get a used steering rack? Most importantly can I allign my car with a bum rack? I have not purchased steering rack bushings yet but that is not the problem. I am not concerned with sloppy steering but more conserned with allignment and tire wear.

 

It's not the tie rods on the inner, its the Rack itself. Your looking at the minimum of 300 bucks and that's if you do it yourself. Tire wear you'll definately get. An alignment helped but I still get feathering on the inside of the front drivers tire. I say screw it and I'm going to wait untill it starts leaking. I just rotate the tires every 3K miles.

 

Did the people that did you allignment have problems lining up the "loose" wheels, because of the slight play in each side? That is my major concern. The sloppy steering is acceptable but it pulling hard to the right is not. Are both sides of the rack loose like mine? This part sucks!

 

Mine's just the drivers side. The Passenger side is nice and tight. One way you can check the inner tierods is to loosen up the one Rack boot clamp and cut the other off. That's how I noticed that it was the rack. I originally thought it was the inner Tie rod too. But I saw the play was coming from the shaft and the inner tie rod was tight. Then just use a good quality zip tie to secure the back side of the boot again.

As for the alignment.....Sears did it. They probably didn't even notice it was a toyota!!!:pat: And yeah your right. Toyota racks are JUNK!

 

Good News I found a complete used steering rack for $125 and a power steering pump for $50. Might as well fix it now befor I get it alligned. Thanks for your help Micky

 

you mean that I found YOU a $125 rack to go with my $80 A/C Compressor

 

i have replaced just the inner tie-rods on my tacoma so you can replace them on your 4runner. i don't remember the cost though but it was alot cheaper than a new rack and didn't take more than an hour to do both. i look back and should have replaced the outers too since those went bad a few months later.

 

Out of curosity what year did the rack come out of?? THere's supposedly a new model that fixes the problem. I would imagine somewhere in the years of 2000+. Not sure about that though

 

Question- having bad inner tie-rods and a bad steering rack are two different problems, aren't they? You can have good tie rods and still have a bad steering rack. BTW, I also remember seeing another thread where a member replaced the rack with a used rack, and had some trouble....

 

It is a 97 Taco steering rack
The rack is the exact same in all 3rd gen 4Runners and similar 4x4 Tacos. I have heard that if the inner tie rods go bad, you need to replace the whole rack because it is a "non-serviceable part" I know a mechanic that will try to rebiuld my old rack, I will let you guys know the results. You can have bad outer tie rods and a perfect rack or vice versa. I needed 2 new boots, one outer tie rod and new inner tie rods so I got a used one that had everything I needed. Also my p/s pump leaks something aweful so instead of buying the rebuild kit I got a pump/resevoir assembaly for $50. I want to see if the old pump will fit my bronco.
It would be interesting to see if the new 4Runner rack would fit
It would suck if this one is bad also, but by playing with it I think it is in perfect shape.

 

The inner tie rods are able to be replaced. SO if your racks in good shape but the tie rods are hosed, you can just replace them. You don't need to replace the whole assembly.