clunk developed. thoughts?

so yesterday driving to SD a strange clunk developed in the front end. it got rear bad at low speed so i turned around drove home and got the bike.

from a dead stop or barely rolling if you move the wheel in the first 1” of steering wheel travel there’s a clunk from the front lower. I can grab the tires and if i push/pull them you can hear it both sides.

going under truck there’s no play in tie rod ends or steering rack, ball joints or any of the control arm bushings, sphericals

the inner cv flanges do have some play though. i can rotate the inner flag a degree or so as well as pull outward the smallest amount.

no seemingly associated shake or shudder driving.

thoughts. gonna take it to the dealer wednesday. i haven’t had a chance to take skid plate off and jack the front up yet as i was leaving for a family trip. have any 3rd gems suffered same steering play like the 2nd?

 

all the suspension bushings / bearing on initial inspection appear good. the noise really kinda seems like it goes from around the steering rack or output flanges on trans. maybe the bearing in the output of the transfer case went bad but it’s not vibrating so i kinda ruled that out

no noise when turning really so i kinda ruled wheel bearings out. but it could actually be a hosed wheel bearing i suppose.

 

Here

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ring-bad-bushings.606218/page-2#post-20522998

 

i have a feeling this is going to get expensive

i’m outside warranty and heavily modded even if i don’t actually use the truck. gotta pay to play.

 

@Norilsk said it was a high labor job...he can chime in as to specifics

 

yeah i’m guessing it’s gonna be in the 1000-1300 range.

 

did you have any alignment or front end work recently?

 

nada. but as i think the clunk at slight moving of the wheel has existed for sometime now just very faint

 

A new rack is $750 from Camelback toyota and the cheapest rebuild for the existing rack I could find was $300.

 

i’ve spend 50k modding this turd why stop now. next mod steering noise delete

 

Then you could go with @BigMike and his modified tundra rack.

 

@BigMike do tell sir.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/ifs-steering-solution-strong-enough-for-40s.549218/

 

Every single truck that's modded / used makes clunk and creak noises. I say leave it until shit gets wack.

 

similar. i knocked the shit outta my steering rack last winter and have been surprised i got lucky on that one. not even a leak, nothing. but i had a similar symptom and major misadventure with a failed LCA cam bolt after an unskilled tech stripped it. it took some months and about $3k to diagnose (that one bolt). doubt that's your issue, but that's why i asked about recent work.

 

The second gen 4wd racks and 3rd gen 4wd racks are the exact same btw.
Here is another solution.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/modified-tundra-rack-swap-preorder.625844/page-2

 

Do your tires stick out past the fenders?

 

this isn’t a leave it noise.

yeah, doesn’t have typical wheel bearing symptoms though and there’s no apparently play in the wheels themselves, at least at first inspection

 

Did you jack it up by the LCA and unload the balljoints when you checked them?

 

i literally was driving from long beach to sd when it started getting bad so i turned around about ½ hour from
long beach went home got my bike and rode it down.

i get home sunday so i can drop the skidplate and jack it up and start playing whose the asshole