What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

If your name isn't Ivan or Brandon then your rear window sticker is about as cool as an elective colonoscopy.

 

Yea pretty disappointing packaging.. It comes wrapped in the cardboard you see there, with a thin plastic bag around that, inside of a cardboard box.. No real protection in there..

I did see that one of the lines was a bit bent at the fitting.. I'm hoping that it holds pressure.. If not hopefully I can just slap my old rack back on and send this one right back to rack doctor..

 

Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

 

I'd be a little upset for sure but it's not the end of the world. At least I'd be able to install the next one super easy haha..

 

Yep it's a difficult one to do but it's possible. You have to be willing to cut a pretty big hole in your headliner, which is extremely hard to cut. You also have to know how to plastic weld.

Thanks! , would have never even saw this.

 

What do you plastic weld? I have tried that before and I wasn't too good at it

 

I made a jeep switch panel from daystar work but I had to cut some sections off and weld them back on in a different spot. I don't have any pictures right now but if you give me a week or two I can pull it out to get pictures for a write up.

 

How hard was it to remove the stock uca's and install the new uca's?

 

The UCA themselves weren't too bad. I had to unbolt a couple brackets in the engine bay in order to slide out the long bolt that holds them to the frame. The ball joint side popped off pretty easily with a BJ separator I rented from Autozone. Taking the BJ's themselves out of the spindle is what was a bitch. I used a BJ press from autozone. Took a while to figure out an adapter combo to make it work but I finally was able to get them removed. The Upper BJ removal probably took up about 1/3 of the total time a spent on the entire project.

 

Quoted for pure win.

 

Ok thanks.. sounds like fun

 

Ok I'm stuck.. How the hell do I get that thing off the old rack...????? Any ideas? This thing is pretty stuck on there..

 

If you're talking about getting that whole flange off the shaft then I'd suggest heating it up and pounding it off sorta like when you get an outer tie rod out of the steering knuckle. But be careful because ATF burns well. I have never changed a rack though, so maybe there is a simpler way, is there a detent and a ball holding it on there or only that one bolt (that you have already removed) compressing it on there?

 

Pretty sure just that one bolt. I'm going to try heat. Only bad thing is there really isn't a good spot to hit it with the hammer.

 

An air hammer is the only thing that worked for me

 

Are you trying to get that steering knuckle off? Cause I was thinking about a hammer and a "pickle fork" .

 

Hmm this thing is not moving at all.. Wishing I had an air hammer right now.

 

That sucks^ mine came right off, no problem what so ever.

 

Yea that's the thing in trying to get, what's a pickle fork?

Almost at the point of giving up. I've been trying to get this pos off for at least 1.5 hrs lol.