Power Steering Leak??

Guess I'm not following you here. Sounds like your truck is past the frame replacement time window, so why would you be reluctant to try and treat the current frame rust?

 

Worst case is I will get it really tight and call it good.

 

Other people I know said the same thing about borrowing or renting the wrench.

I know they can try to drum up business with the state inspections. There is no way of telling if that's what's going on here. They also know if I can I will do the work myself.

 

Right now I'm trying to get an inspection sticker on it. They also pointed out that it needs the coolant flush and fill. After that I will see what I can do about the rust.

 

The large socket for the axle nut is size 35mm. hopefully that helps. I got my axle nut set from a discount tool store for 60$s, containing 28-38mm.

 

All I did today was confirm that the reservoir was staying at the right level. Tomorrow I plan on checking what tools I can borrow or rent for this. I also am going to the car wash and blasting all the AFT fluid off the bottom of my truck.

 

Ok. I went to the auto part store. I can borrow/rent the torque wrench and socket needed.

Went to the car wash and gave the underside a good cleaning.

Once I got home I jacked up the front end. Spun the left hand tire and there is a noise. Spun the right tire and no noise.

Confirmed the left fog light it out.

I am going to order the parts needed today.

This is the video I watched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvmwz8OXhhc

Check it out. A lot more rust on the truck in the video.

 

Alright - Amazon spanked AutoZone on the price. All the Amazon reviews mention a seal. What seal? I did not see one in the video... I only want to do this once on each side.

 

The o-ring (seal) that fits between the OD of the bearing lip and ID of the mating spindle.

 

There are plenty of other videos showing the seal (o-ring), but here's one for example (shown at 5:35 timestamp):

 

Good video. Better than the one I posted. I ordered one seal. I will have to order the other.

I should have what I ordered by Friday. Everything is slow right now.

 

So progress was made. Taking out the old hub was interesting. Took me about 2 hours. But it looks to me like the seal for the CV needs to be replaced.

So I tried to follow the instructions in the video to remove the lower ball joint. Step 1 was to remove the cotter pin. It snapped right off with nothing left to grab a hold of. I spent and hour trying to get it out.

Any advice on how to proceed. I plan to replace the rusted out cover for the brakes.

 

Try loosening/tightening the castle nut and see if you can shear off the remnants of the cotter pin. Don’t go at it all in one shot to avoid damaging the threads of the ball joint. Or you might be able to get a punch in there to push it out.

 

You're just try to get the spindle clear of the CV axle to replace the seals? The lower ball joint is fine? If so, don't try to separate the lower ball joint. Just undo the two bolts holding the steering stop to the spindle. Don't worry about the cotter pin - 13 years of rust will keep the nut tight even without a cotter pin.

 

My neighbor said the same thing. He also mentioned drilling it out.

 

I just watched the second video again. The ball joint is fine. I don't know why they removed the ball joint nut in the video. It does appear to be an extra step...

 

Ok. I tried again to get the seal out. I was able to remove the two bolts holding the lower control arm to the knuckle. I still could not get CV out of the steering knuckle. Finally gave up and was going to see what it would take to remove the whole thing. But I took one last look at the video. You can see in the video that the sway bar connection to the knuckle has been removed. So they skipped that step.

Anything I should know before I disconnect the sway bar? The truck is on 2 jack stands, but the passenger side tire is touching the ground right now.

Also, I discovered to spring things wrapped around the CV. I thought it was part of the failed seal. But it's not rubber but tightly wrapped springs. I did manage to remove them. What are they? Do I replace them?

 

Never mind on the spring things. They are part of the seal, and the new seal has them.

 

Tomorrows plan is to keep removing bolts from the knuckle until the CV is free or the knuckle is free. If I get the knuckle removed I'll let the local machine shop clean it up for me, remove the old seal, and install the new seal.

I have briefly viewed a few video's showing this. I didn't see torque specs but I didn't watch the whole video yet. Does anyone know the torque specs for re-installing the knuckle?

 

OK. So I had a few more hours to work on it today.

Once I got the sway bar disconnected from the steering knuckle, I could get the CV free of the knuckle. The seal popped right out. From there I clean everything with paper towels, put the new seal on the CV, and started re-assembling stuff. It went pretty good until the sun started setting. I was trying to torque the big spindle nut at the time. The brakes are not back on it yet.

Tomorrow I hope to finish the job. I think if the brakes are on, I can have someone hold the brakes while I torque the big nut.

I want to thank Tacoma World and the people here. I did find the torque specs for everything I needed on another thread here. The search here did not find it, but google did.