1st gen rack and pinion

Ok so lifted my 97 3in and when I drive it it started to get kinda sloppy so I jacked up the truck and checked all the suspension and when I was jacking it up herd some pops from the rack and pinion and then it didn't drive sloppy after that until today and then I read somewhere that said you have to like over fill the front diff because the rack & pinion won't get enough oil is this true and will it fix my problem?

 

Front diff oil has nothing to do with rack and pinion. Two completely separate systems.

 

That's what I thought I just heard this and was curious if it was true

 

Did you get it aligned after lifting it. Improper caster and camber will make steering sloppy

 

Yep, pretty sure the rack and pinion is packed with grease isn't it? I've never actually looked that closely at mine. I know a lot of older Chevy trucks have a greaseable zerk on the rack and pinion pivot point.

 

No grease or zerks on the rack....just ATF flowing through it...

 

Get someone to move wheel and look at connection from steering box / rack bushing. I bet it moves at that junction. Rack Doctor is the way to go / rebuilt minus $100 core is $250 shipped / new from Toyota $700

Made all the difference

 

I have a bad rack bushing here. It can be misdiagnosed as a bad inner tie rod, but get it up in the air, pull back the inner boot and move the driver side inner tie rod up and down. If it wiggles inside the rack sleeve its a bad box bushing (fun to say, eh?) like ol '81 said. Don't start replacing tie rod ends until you see this happen.

 

I've got a 1997 SR5 that I've lifted 3.5 inches. After I had a ball joint fail on the road (steering was pretty sloppy up til then), I ended up replacing all ball joints. That cleaned it up a bit. I also replaced the tie rod ends and steering rack as well. After all of that my steering is spot on.

So I'm not sure which was the culprit, perhaps it was all of it combined.


Now that my steering is tight, I can feel exactly how twitchy the truck is without a lot of weight in it haha.

 

A mis-match in terms.

The steering rack in our trucks is a 'rack and pinion' type. All differentials have a pinion gear, shaft and bearing. As you can see, a pinion, is a pinion, is a pinion.

There is potential for the front diff's pinion bearing to not get well enough lubed when a diff drop kit installed. The solution for that is to over fill the diff a little bit with gear oil.