Steering Rack Issues!

Yeah pretty scary at times.

 

I think my rack is bad. Replaced the bushings, still loose / vague steering. Retorqued much tighter that spec, seemed better for a day or 2, but might have been just in my head. Feels very loose and wanders pretty bad. Might replace rack and intermediate shaft. Drives like shit currently. Have had alignment.

 

Are the supplied washers inner diameter larger than the bolt diameter? Heck and even larger than the metal sleeve?

 

The whitelines have a weird setup. Washer goes around the sleeve not the bolt. It can be miss aligned. I haven't had time to mess with the rack yet. I hope to dig into it this weekend.

 

Ok that's how mine fit, it seems very strange. Also my kit came with 4 half length sleeves, trying to talk to their chat to see if that's normal.

 

Mine had 4 as well. I ended up with a Energy kit for the rack, going to install that when the rain clears up.

 

Support verified that was correct, and just left things very vague on how the washer was supposed to fit. I'm pretty sure the rep didn't know.

 

I'm back on chat support with Whiteline..

$61 W13400 Front Rack and Pinion Bushing Kit; Fits Toyota Tacoma 06-13

W13400 does not fit correctly or I got a bad kit.. The sleeves are too short to reach all the way through the bushings and allow the weird washer design to cut the lips off the bushing. I only tightened them to factory spec (68ft/lbs).

On a new Cardone rack.. Not that it should matter, the bushing "housing" is the same inner diam and height.

 

I'm betting it's a bad design. Pretty sure mine is allowing my rack to move back and forth even when torqued correctly.

 

Yea it looks like the washers fitting around the sleeve is the bad design. I'm no engineer, but I can't see a reason for it. I've got some m12 x 37mm washers coming to fit on top of the sleeve. When I get my warranty replacement bushings I'll post how it works out.

 

i had the same symptoms and decided to get under there and tighten the living crap out of the rack bolts with a 24" breaker bar. 4 days of driving and things seem pretty good. will put some more miles on it and report back.

 

Pulled the whiteline bushings and installed the energy set. The whitelines are much softer and the design just makes no sense compared to the energy set. Test drive tomorrow. I used whitelines in the lower control arms and those are fantastic, but these are no good.

 

Looking for pricing on ES 8.10106 and Amazon said I already ordered a set last year.. Found em and wow.. There's a bit of difference in design. Not sure which I'm going to use yet. The new washers I ordered for the whitelines will be here tomorrow.



Edit: Whiteline setup an RMA and replacement for me.. Don't know if I want to wait on their bushings or use the ES ones. They said they would tell the kangoroo engineers to update the bushings. So I sent them that comparison pic.

 

New washers showed up. When I get the whiteline RMA bushings I'll use them. *The center washer is just to show the 3mm gap that will be between the sleeves/bushings.



Update:
New bushings/washers are in with minimal squeeze out. I'm much happier with this install. I'll get the wheels back on and an alignment this weekend.

 

Are you getting any side to side movement on the rack with the new bushings? I just got my replacement set of bushings from whiteline, but the current set on the truck lets my rack move left/right and my steering wheel always goes off center

 

I haven't had a 2nd person to move the steering wheel while I look at the rack but my steering wheel is not going off center.

 

Thank you! This bushing issue has been one of my least favorite mods to date. I am looking into getting thicker bolts before I swap the new bushings in.

 

Thicker bolts? Are you gonna ream out the metal sleeves or make your own?

 

I hate to say it, just get the energy bushing set and call it a day. My whitelines caused all kinds of movement issues, changed over to the energy set and all is good! You can swap from Whiteline to ES with the rack still in the truck. Not easy, but you can. I could never get my wheel straight, now it’s prefect.

 

I want a bolt thick enough to fit the sleeve the crossmember better, then I can have some sleeves machined to spec.

Going to give these one more shot before I give up. @Sandman614 is on the right track with getting washers that don't drop into the sleeve.