My truck feels "unstable"

hey guys, ive been having an ongoing thing with my 2002 tacoma, a little background its a 4x4 ext, cab 90k miles, i have a 3" ome lift with brand new 33" bfg. km2s, with the sway bar removed it has a vibration over 55-60 mph. also it feels like the steering wheel is "loose" i can move it about 1/2" on both sides before the wheels move, is this normal?

heres what ive done to try and fix the issue; alignment, wheel balance, steering rack bushings, checked the front end out, everything seams normal, either the itre or otre seem to have a tini bit of play, but nothing that i would be worried about. it drives fine on the normal roads but i still have that bit of play in my steering wheel.
any input would be awesome its almost to the point im scared to drive it on the freeway.

 

If you haven't done this.....you should. It makes the steering much tighter with zero play in the column.

 

your the man! thanks dude ill do this saturday, anything else i can do while im in there?

 

i went and tried to diagnose the problem in my truck, where do i hold when i turn the wheel back and forth?

 

You will need to pull the column to actually diagnose the problem. Only if it REALLY bad you can feel the "play".

If you have checked the front end suspension and had an alignment recently to verify that the frontend components don't shift.....then most likely it is the tiny little play in the column.

 

im going to do it either way, i dont think it can hurt anything.

 

When you get the column on the bench take a good look at the white plastic "tilt" ball. It's a plastic affair that serves as universal joint of sorts. It can develop play in addition to the play in the slip joint. Shimming it is a pretty quick fix. I explain it in post #42 of the TTORA thread.

With the column in the truck grab the lower end of the shaft down near the spline joint or pinch bolt as some call it with a good sized set of vice grips. This will greatly enhance the feel. Any play felt at all will benefit from the weld. I have never seen a Taco with any kind of mileage that did not suffer from this issue to some degree.

 

thanks for your info man. i really hope this solves it, it got alot worse when i put my 33s on.

 

Forgot to mention, the TTORA write up deals with the tilt type column only.
If that's you, your good to go. The non-tilt columns suffer from the same thing but the removal procedure is somewhat different and more involved.
I have the poop on it if needed.

 

thank you i have the tilt

 

Dirty pool what did you use to shim the ball?

 

I just tack welded mine last week end. Huge difference!!! I was a little shocked how little grease was in there at the plastic bushings. It's like a new truck now. I can run down the freeway with one hand on the wheel!!

Jcl

 

Mr Cohbs, give me your hand. Now lets read post #7 above together. Be sure to read all of post #42 where I detail all the short cuts.

I used plastic from an oil container just so I knew it was oil/grease resistant. The ball is lightly greased.
See how much gap you have and make your selection appropriately. You just want to fill the gap. Oil containers vary in thickness and any one will vary from side to side, top to bottom etc.

Tilt ball location.


Tilt ball apart and improvised shim from the original thread (before the thread above) Post #140 here

 

Haha thanks bro!!

 

Remember to keep your steering wheel centered. When removed, keep it as if it was connected to your steering rack and your tires are facing straight ahead.

If it's all katty wompous when you reassemble you may ruin your clock-spring later down the road.

 

Be sure to read page 2 of that link. You don't need to disassemble the entire column. The column will come out of the truck very easily.

Start to finish you should be done in an hour including the welding.

 

Unless you probably just need new UCAs for that 3" lift.

 

Perhaps reconnect your sway bar? Why on earth would you want to drive around with it disconnected at highway speeds? Articulation is what you don't want. I am no expert but....

 

Yeah, my stock system checked out fine, honestly I think it's just a mix of the otre, steering wheel slop, and the brand new 10.50 mts following lines in the road..

 

With the truck turned off. Grab the top of the steering wheel. If it moves left to right with no resistance with a metallic click then the problem is the steering shaft. Every tacoma I've seen or driven has had this problem to some degree. By 100K miles mine was so sloppy I could move the wheel about 2 inches in both directios without the truck turning.

Highway driving was scary as you'd turn the wheel and noting would happen then all of a sudden you've turned too far and trying to correct.