wa4x4

I have been doing a bit of freeway driving in my 1998 4runner with 130 pretty tough miles on the stock suspension and it has been wandering ALL over the place. Almost to the point that on rough sections or where they are re-doing the road it looks like I am driving drunk!

Today I was driving doing 40mph on a back road and I hit a spot that was raised (they had replaced a pipe and layed down fresh cement down thicker than the rest of the street) and the 4runner hopped over on the shoulder and I heard the tire chirp. It felt like it came from the back too.

I don't know what this could be. Do you think doing new struts and springs will fix this, IE do an OME 2.5" lift?

I know it's not the tires, I switched out to a set of 2007 FJ Cruiser wheels/tires for daily driving.

neliconcept

mine does a little, but thats just because of wind and im sitting up realllly tall. could be the steering rack, i really need to check out mine

mjwalfredo

My 97 runner has about 200k mi on it and I noticed it was wandering a whole lot even at low speed driving. Replacing the steering rack bushings with poly bushings has helped immensly. The old bushings didn't really look too bad to me after pulling them out but I did have a great deal of rack movement when I turned the wheel with the truck parked on pavement.

I lost one of my swaybar endlink bushings when replacing the ones on the steering rack (I think my new puppy ate it) so I plan to replace those as well with poly bushings. So even with a missing bushing there, the truck is much better about wandering. I'll post results on how new endlink bushings affect the handling when I get them on.

dias_ryan

Mine wanders like an SOB.

I have a bad ball joint on the passenger side I just noticed. Gonna replace that, then get an alignment.

Try again and see how it handles on the highway.

Just put the poly rack bushings in about a month ago. Helped a bit.

tom_mag

I replaced my shocks and struts at 115K miles. The truck was really "floaty" on the freeway. I used Monroe Reflex struts and kept the stock springs. It handles really good now. The suspension is stiff, maybe to stiff. It feels like a European car suspension now.

ewong

umm - how stock is it?

IMHO
-OEM shocks (non TRD) are good for 15K (thats now long mine lasted till I broke one)
-OEM rubber bushings are good for oh 100K - NON off road abuse
-tie rod ends, ball joints - Id feel better about swapping em out at 100K or at least checkem em every 10-20K thereafter (not that one doenst check em that often anyway)
-- idler arm (oh - you have the R&P steering - never mind)

Trailing arm bushings - again 100K

IMHO get rod ends or OEM rubber... but thats just IMHO...

BajaRunner

I think a lot of people who have had problems like that get a steering rack bushing kit. You can get new bushings for like $15 or something from wheelersoffroad.com

I did it, didn't notice a difference, but, I never had any wandering beforehand.

Might want to try that first.

jagger_snitt

Check your tie rod ends,when they go bad they cause a lot of steering play,when your sitting still,move the steering wheel left and right,as your doing this stick your head out the window and look at your tire,if it is not moving fairly close to the same movement as the steering wheel then your tie rod end or ends probably need to be replaced.

kevin444

My 3rd gen wanders. its like i have to fight over steerring for it to go straight. On uneven pavement.

mjwalfredo

Yo, Ewong... have you replaced the trailing arm bushings?

Gerdo

Mine was scarry, then I replaced my steering bushings with a poly set. Fixed it. Like these http://www.wheelersoffroad.com/4runnerrackbushkit.htm

wa4x4

I'm on stock shocks at 130k.
I think I'm gonna do the OME 2.5" and steering bushings.

Should help.
That bump in the road scared the ☺☺☺☺ outta me!

The 4runner is only my daily driver for about another week, so then I can tear into it to do this work.

cox380

my 99 4runner has 120K mlies and stock springs and shocks. Rides as straight as an arrow.

Wantsti

Mine gets blown around a lot in the wind, and some bumps make it feel pretty unsettled. I have the steering bushing kit, but have not installed it yet. How sensitive are our 4Runner's to alignments? The reason I ask is my WRX also had some tracking issues (not nearly as bad as the 4Runner) until I had it corner balanced and aligned. It is incredibly stable now under all conditions. The guy that aligned it won't touch trucks though. I had an alignment done after I put the lift in, but I don't feel like the truck is dialed in yet. It is to the point where I drive the WRX whenever the wind kicks up (quite often in my part of So Cal) because the 4Runner is a handful to keep in the lane. Just curious if anyone has played with the alignment on our rigs.

wa4x4

What suspension do you have on your WRX.
It's my thread I can jack it if I want.
You should come check out www.wrxmodders.com, seriously.

MATT0404

My 4runner was pretty scarry to drive on the highway until I changed the passenger inner tie-rod and the steering rack bushings. I also just did a 1" body lift and when I installed the steering extension my steering seemed to tighten up even more.

P.S. Good choice on vehicles

wa4x4

Dude, what is with all the Subaru owners.
Seriously guys, wrxmodders.com
Check it out.

How is your 20g working out on your RA gears?
That's pretty much my setup that should be on the road in 7 days.

TD06 20g, APS header and up, APS turbo inlet, Helix TBE, Cobb SRI, Cryo treated/polished RA gears, and a bunch of other stuff.

My tuner predicts mid to high 300whp on a Mustang dyno. I would be satisfied because at Cobb stage 2 I put down 200.8whp and 248.9wtq.


It would be nice to see some of the Yota crew over on wrxmodders, it's a good scene over there.

Wantsti

Jack away !!

Megan Racing with an upper strut bar...haven't driven the car in about a month, took it out last night, got popped for no front plate and window tint...the 4Runner keeps me out of trouble.

I have checked out wrxmodders. Seems to have a more mature group than NASIOC. Haven't joined yet, I am spread too thin already with all of these forums!

MATT0404

I love the 20g and the RA gears. I have the td06h and even on the 2.5 there's still a bit of lag but it's worth it in the higher RPM's. I'm pretty easy on my gears. I don't drag race, or drop the clutch ever. The longer gearing is a good compliment to the 20g's top end though.

I was tuned at EngineLogics in Houston, TX on a dyno dynamics dyno which reads pretty low. I put down 337whp and 350 ft. lb.. The bad thing was that I maxed out (well, 90% idc) my 750cc injectors at only 18 pounds of boost. That was with no meth. Now, I have meth and I'm waiting on bigger injectors.

Good luck with your car, and I registered on wrxmodders.com.

wa4x4

LOL.
My dad was like "The good thing about your car being down is it's great for your driving record!"

Funny guy.

Well, I am taking the 4runner wheeling on saturday, we'll see how much worse the wandering is on Monday after i put the street tires back on...