Help...oil or power steering fluid??

I have a small drip that seems to be coming off of the skid plate in the rear on the drivers side. I laid some cardboard under to see what it was and the drips are a very light brown and I have isolated them to the rear of the engine bay/rear skid on the drivers side. I noticed there were some drips on the steering rack (I just had it replaced 7 months ago or so) and the dust cover or boot was wet where it adjoins the rack. Now here's where I am confused. Oil level and power steering level seem to be fine and not changing. The drips when they hit cardboard or my driveway are brown but steering fluid is red. So this makes me think it could be oil, but it's very far back on the skid plate. My other theory is that the steering fluid is dripping onto the skid plate, running over all the shit and grease and by the time it is at the edge and drips off it has no turned a brownish color. Any ideas?? Any help is appreciated.

 

Remove the skid plates, and take a good look. Could also be TC oil, axle grease, brake fluid, etc.
If its still hard to tell, clean off everything under there and check again.

 

check your valve covers. those valve cover bolts loosing up over time.

 

A couple of years ago after a bit of off-road activity, I accidentally drove about 70 mph for 5 miles in 4WD. When I got home (600 miles later) I found pretty much the same thing. Some brown oily stuff on the skid plate, driver's side, and toward the rear of the plate, and loaded with grit, sand, and pebbles. There was also some oil spray almost all the way back to the rear bumper on the driver's side.

I took off the skid plates and cleaned them along with any oil residue I found on the parts above. I had to reach pretty high above the diff, but I never found any cracks or other signs of where the oil came from. It did smell like gear oil though.

10,000 miles later everything is still clean.

I changed the front diff oil before the off-road activity and as I recall, I put too much gear oil back in. While it did not come pouring out of the fill hole, it was coming out in a more-or-less steady, small stream so I just real quick-like reinstalled the plug.

That's the only thing I can think of, maybe if you changed the oil in the front diff you might have the same problem???

 

Turns out it is the rack again my mechanic is covering it under warranty so we'll see. Is there anything that could be causing the rack to fail like this, or was I just unlucky?

 

I have not heard good things about aftermarket racks. There is one reputable place but I forget the name of it. My guess is you have an aftermarket rack and it blew up early. Better early and under warranty than just outside of it, so be thankful for that. Keep an eye on it with the new rack though, you may run into the same problem again. At that point you should probably go with an OEM rack.

FWIW mine leaks too, but I have yet to do anything about it. The steering racks on these trucks are notorious for blowing seals. Add larger tires to the equation and it just makes it that much worse.

 

My mechanic claimed these aftermarket aluminum ones were better, but now I'm starting to wonder

 

I have been running a reman'd cvj axle rack (rebuilt OEM racks) for about 6 months now with no problems. That may be the company @thunderone was thinking of. Took a risk with it since they don't warranty them when you are lifted with bigger tires etc. but I thought I'd give the local company a shot and so far so good with a couple pretty hard wheeling trips on it.

 

Could be it, apparently not even Toyota manufactures new racks anymore, they reman them. CVJ will take your rack and reman it with Toyota components... probably the best route to take. Also, I hope your mechanic used ATF fluid and not PS fluid!

http://www.cvjreman.com/RAP.php

 

So I noticed that after it was replaced the suspension feels really bad (it was already shot, but now it seems worse). Also it pulls to the right pretty bad when braking. Any ideas?

 

Did he realign the front wheels? And if so, how do you know he REALLY did???

 

I'm thinking he just estimated, since it was a warrantied replacement and he wasn't making any or much money off it. I've actually never had a good alignment from him I usually go to someone else for alignments. Could the bad alignment be causing all this?

 

If it pulls when braking and rides like shit, maybe. Does it pull when not braking?

 

Ask @Krazie Sj, he's the resident expert on figuring out if you've got engine oil, tranny fluid, radiator fluid, etc... and whether or not is should be put back in a different reservoir or the one it's supposed to go in

 

It turned out to be steering fluid.

 

Upon further driving I noticed the wheel is cocked a few degrees to the right and the pulling while braking is only really noticeable while braking downhill. However I do think my control arm bushings are finally shot. I'll take that as an excuse to redo the front end

 

Update: checked my tire pressure just for kicks and each tire was over 50 psi. I have wrangler duratracs and I know that they are supposed to be much lower than 50. What do you guys recommend for a tire like that, the stock 26-28? Anyways I deflated them down to 27 and the ride was much better, still pulls a little to the right but it's good otherwise.

 

I ruined a set of Bridgestone Revo II tires by running them on my 1998 Tacoma at 26 & 28 lbs. After 10K miles I could hear them rumble a tiny bit and after 20K miles I had to replace them. There were cupped pretty badly.

 

Cupping is usually caused by worn shocks. Under-inflating causes the outsides of the tread to wear faster than the middle. That is what my tires did in the first year.

Now I run my tires at 35 in front, and 32 in the rear.

 

Okay so what tire pressure should I run? I have a lot of highway driving to do this weekend and don't want any troubles, the problem I found with high psi is that it makes potholes and bumps feel absolutely awful.