Play in between left front wheel and rack & pinion... 2000 PreRunner

2000 PreRunner. I have some slop in my steering that is bothering me. If I grab the left wheel at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions and rock back and forth there is significant movement and a clunking noise. Seems to emanate from where the tie rod end meets the rack. I pulled the rack boot back and was able to get some movement from what I think is the rack itself by pushing up and down on the innermost part of the tie rod. Are these racks known for this? Am I maybe confusing inner tie rod slop for rack slop? Which is more common? I've gotta tear into it sooner or later and I really don't want to put a rack on this old truck.

 

Yes, could be either or possibly both. See if you can isolate the movement better. Is it the main rack shaft or is it the inner tie rod?

Up and down movement of the rack general indicates the guides in the rack are worn.

Saw this in the daily thread that might help you. http://www.yotatech.com/f2/how-replace-steering-rack-guide-pictures-215931/

 

Yes on the driver side rack shaft play, pretty common. And
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/rack-pinion-service-tools-tips-dry-wordy.312600/

 

Just bought the parts to patch this issue up, hopefully I'll be actually doing the fix on Monday and can provide more info then.

 

How do you know what type of guide you have? Roller or not? I am about to do this as well, as I am pretty sure my slop is in the rack and not inner tie rod.

 

B/c the plug is different. The old ones have a male nut and the new one has a female fitting. The yotatech link shows you the difference. Just tightened mine up a couple weeks ago.

 

And tightening it up did the trick for you? I just checked and I have the male hex nut.

The guy in the DIY post seemed to remove the nut and install the female style, leading me to assume that one is the updated replacement for the other?

 

Correct, he installed the updated parts that the 01-04 trucks have.

 

Yes, he had the old style(male) and replaced with the new style(female) that is found on 2001-2004. The guide it's self was updated. I already had the new one and just adjusted it.

 

The new style guide also requires the new style cap. A spacer can be made to adapt the old style cap to the new style guide but it's more trouble than it's worth. Also the little spring is a different part number but no one has been able to detect any difference between the 2.

 

Just ordered the parts yesterday. I'm anxious to do this simple repair. I've got mega-slop going on.

 

All I can say is WOW! This update is soooo easy and soooo effective I can't believe I didn't know about it sooner. Clunk is GONE! 100%. And steering feel is so much tighter with zero slop while driving over bumps and the like. Thank you to digiratus for sending me in the right direction.

Edit: I forgot to say that on my 2000 PreRunner, the Home Depot rod coupler the OP mentioned was too long and interfered with my sway bar. I had to cut it in half with a grinder. Other than that, piece of cake.

 

Good to hear, I'll be doing it tomorrow, my parts came in today

 

This thread (or at least the link to the repair procedure) should be a sticky. My steering literally feels new again after this $80 and 30 minute repair.

 

@Dirty Pool

thanks for posting the link to that write up. My rack was insanely sloppy, now after changing the guide to the new style it got no play at all. It's like a German virgin now.

 

Sorry to revive an old thread but I'm in a similar boat to OP but with a few additional questions. My steering rack "inner bearing" has been diagnosed as bad by an alignment shop - the tech showed me the slop of the rack with the inner boot off and how it wasn't the inner tie rod. Is what he referring to the steering rack guide or the bearing inside the assembly above the rack guide? When I had an independent Toyota shop look at the same problem, he pulled back the inner boot and came to the same conclusion and also said I needed to buy a whole new rack.

Were they referring to the bearing in this picture? It sits above the rack guide and is above the control valve assembly



Do the bearings in those control valve assemblies go bad or should I try and replace the carrier guide before I replace my whole rack?

 

He was likely referring to the Rack Guide as a bearing. The control shaft bearings (3) rarely fail if ever, unless there was extreme water penetration. In that case there would be very obvious corrosion on the rack shaft and the whole rack would not be worth fooling with.

The guide and the spring pressure (preload) on it is all that stabilizes the driver side end of the rack shaft.
If it steers good, is an OE Toyota rack, there is no corrosion inside both boots and does not leak, go for the rack guide upgrade, simple and cheap.
Even if it already has the new style guide, they do wear out. Just no where near as fast as the old style.

If you have any doubts about the maker/style of your rack, post up some good pics of it from the rear. Also to the right of the control valve kinda behind one of the external hard lines an OE rack will say "TOYODA" cast into the housing.

 

Who knows what he was referring to...

My experience with steering racks is that the rack guide wears out pretty quickly. I had my rack replaced once at 50K miles and the technician showed me the difference in rack guide play between my original rack and a new one. At the time (2010) he also said he had hard times obtaining rebuilt racks due to excessive play at the rack guide, and that he had to return two racks before the one he was going to install into my truck met the specifications for rack guide clearance. BTW, he obtained the racks from Napa Auto.

After the work was done, the truck steered like a new truck!

I now have almost 90K miles on the truck, the last 35K with the replacement rack. When I find play in the steering, I'll consider replacing the rack guide first before shelling out $600 on another rack.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/rack-pinion-service-tools-tips-dry-wordy.312600/

 

Awesome. Thanks for the replies all. Looks like I'm going to be replacing the rack guide and maybe my bushings. I'm pretty sure the rack is OEM, so with the parts all listed it should be pretty straight forward. Do you need an alignment after this repair?