Ok, I have got a few questions.

I was out playing in a dirt pit the other day, doing some donuts and just having some fun down there. After this I seem to notice a few thing I didn?t before.

The steering seems loser than it used to be, going down the highway I can feel a shake in the steering wheel that I don?t remember before. And it just feels loser up front. There also seem to be a very slight pull to the right but I think that was there already. I went over a few rocks and suck but nothing that big, no more than a curb size. And i never heard them hit anything under the truck at all.

The other thing is a knock in the engine that I don?t remember at all. Something like a cam or something, regular and it adjusts with the engine speed. Not real loud but if I roll down the pass window I can hear it a little and if I park next to something then I can hear it fairly well. I might be able to get a video of it if the mic will pick it up.

I am wondering if the 3.4 has a rev limiter? And what the safe reving limit is? I don?t think it ever red lined but it did get up to 5K a few times when I was doing the donuts (as you most likely know it is hard to control the rev speed and do the donut and not crash at the same time). I figured it had a rev limiter so I was not real worried about over reving but I don?t ever remember hitting the limiter and I don?t know if it might have over reved hurting something? Any info would be great. Thanks

the engine still runs and drives perfect with no noticeable differnce in performance. The only thing i notice is that when at idle and in drive that the RPM's are lower than usual (~550 instead of ~750 and cause it to run rough. But i think that might have started when it got cooler.

 

The loose steering is probably a bad bushing on the rack and pinion steering cause by extensive agressive driving off road. That is a hard one to replace as Toyota doesn't make the bushing seperatly for some models. This would be caused by extensive ammounts of playing around, and I would not expect this problem if this was your first time driving hard off-road.

If you feel a vibration down the highway I would guess there might be some debree in you wheels causing them to be off balance.

Not sure on the knocking from the engine, I'll let someone else post that one.

These are the simple answers and they get more complex and expensive from there. Check these out and post your findings.

 

Yeah i was woundering about the bushing but as you say that is usually from a lot of off-road driving. For the last 125K it didn't see anything but pavment. Heck the 4WD was not even used much if at all. I have played around before but nothing real hard, usually just me and some guys go out to one of our places and play around. This last time i did more donuts and high revs then normal, don't know if that might have done something.

I will look at that bushing though, which one is it?

The shake int he wheel could have been just that, i will see how it drives next time now that the junk should be out of it.

Thanks for the info.

 

Check the rack bushings, there are two that actually hold the rack on, also look up towards the steering wheel from the underside and inspect the condition of the rag joint and the seal around that, it is what seals the steering shaft at the cab. as for the vibration, figure out where its coming from, then start inspecting. Lift the front tires off the ground one at a time by the A arm, then with the wheel locked see if you can move the wheel side to side. Play in this manner means that you have a bent inner or outer tierod. You could also check the balljoints by looking for play up and down, however this requires much more force so you will want to pry on the bottom of the tire with something to get leverage. If you find something is bent and want instruction on how to replace it PM me on here and ill walk you through it.