hey guys, today i went offroading with some of my friends and i let go of the wheel for a second on this trail and it spun around a couple times and i ended up going over this really big rock... everythings fine on my truck, no body damage etc.., except for one thing.... when im going straight the steering wheel is turned like 60 degrees or so to the right.... is this going to be expensive to fix? whats broken? thanks for the help in advance

kelly

p.s. i dont have to hold the wheel at that angle, so its really not all to difficult to drive except the wheels a little odd looking

 

It sounds like you stripped a tooth or three in the steering rack. Jack the front end up and yank on the wheel and see of there is some play where the tie rod goes into the rack.

If that's what blew, you are looking at $700+ for parts and another couple hundred labor at the minimum if you let Toyota do the work.

It's no fun, but the job can be done for less at home.

 

He has old junk with recirculating ball steering. There is no steering rack like new junk has.

I'm thinking bent tie rod. Its impossible to tell without seeing the truck.

 

since my steering is still fine isnt there somethign where i could just loosen a nut on the steering shaft, turn the wheel back to center and then tighten it again? my cars turning is just as it used to be except the steering wheel is off

kelly

 

From my understanding of alingments with this type of setup, it's easy to get the wheel off centered if you whacked it out of alignment real good from hitting something.

It may be something as simple as a new alignment, and the shop can then put your steering wheel back to the proper location.

Some shops will look at it for free, and can tell you if you bent/broke something, or if an alignment will cure it.

 

just remove the steering wheel and put it back on strait. the splines you can put back on at any position. take the horn piece of the center and remove the 19 mm nut and you can pull the wheel off. if you sit in the seat and wiggle and pull on the wheel kindof hard it'll come off without a puller

 

who would have thought... i've never read the off-road.com message boards but i figured id check it out and i found this

http://bbs.off-road.com/ubbthreads/s...b=5&o=&fpart=1

what do you think (i just need to fix it cosmetically not like the guy who posted it)

would roger browns 1st solution work?

thanks,
kelly

 

If your rig is IFS I'll bet you tweaked the idler arm. Look under the front of the rig at the center link (IFS name for "tie rod") and see if it's parallel to the bottom of the frame, if it rises to the passenger side the idler is bent. If may feel and drive fine, but your tires will wear like crazy with the extra toe-in you get from it.

 

<~ has sfa

 

<~ was unaware of that

 

Hmm, solid huh? Stock push-pull steering setup? I'm pretty sure that if the axle gets shifted backwards the steering will go left, and hence you'll have to correct to the right with the wheel. Mabye that's what happened?

 

Don't do anything drastic and try to hold it off and bring it out this saturday for us to check out

I'm sure some of the guys can help you out since they'll be able to take a look at it.