How to change the rack and pinion steering -2nd gen V6

Ok my r&p is leaking and drives like shit ... While im under there do you think it will make it easyer to do my water pump... Im at 190000 and havent done it yet... Shouodbi just the 2 all at once ?

 

Additional tip: I was installing my new steering rack last night. Several have said an extra set of hands was helpful. Well, I didn't have anyone to help me, so as I was wrestling with tying to rotate forward, slip the driver side bolt in and then rotate back, I noticed that the passenger side needed to be raised up and I just couldn't hold the whole rack up and rotate at the same time. I ended up using a piece of 1"x 2" board I had handy and I placed the 1" side under the passenger side of the rack between the rack and the frame. This made the rack more level as I held the drive side up and allowed me to do the tilt forward, insert the drive side bolt, move further to the drive side, tilt backwards, move back toward the bolt hole and the bolt dropped in. It is a very narrow sweet spot to get that bolt in, to say the least!

 

Hey guys I need some help my rack and pinion was leaking so I took it off and got it rebuilt with new seals and new outter tie rods and inner tie rods and all that I put it back together and the steering wheel is stiff its at firestone getting alignment be ready tomorrow should i be worried idk if I topped off the Power steering fluid. I need some advice

 

Joining the club with a junkyard rack, needs some wire wheel and paint love, poly bushings, then it'll be ready to go.

 

Just changed out my hubs this past weekend and noticed my passenger side boot has the tell tale signs. I had planned on changing the inner/outer tie rods and boots already and purchased the needed components. Is the manufacturer known for the inner tie rods that come installed on the Cardone rack from Rock Auto? I have Pro-forged 104-10892 inner tie rods.

Update - just received my rack. I purchased via Amazon so the core charge wasn't in effect. Based on the appearance of the inner tie rods, I'm going to replace them. Also the part number cast into the rack body is different than the one in the OP. But the box matches. We'll see how this goes.

 

This is my first post here...I've lurked for a long time, but never really felt compelled to contribute to this forum until I saw this thread, which was extremely helpful. Lots of good tips and tricks in here that saved my bacon a couple of times during the process of replacing my power steering rack. I thought I'd try to consolidate some of the info here for ease of reference, as well as add some additional insights that might help others. Mine was a nightmare of an install...those details will come after this post.

My Truck

2007 Tacoma, Access Cab, 4x4, TRD Off Road Package - bought it new in '07, and have since put about 150k miles on it as a daily driver. The truck was reframed back in 2016 along with many others in this area (Southwest Ohio). The truck is 100% stock minus an aftermarket stereo. For the most part, it has been trouble free with only basic maintenance required. Well, minus needing a new frame. And my rear differential whose bearings decided to have a glitter party my daughters would have been envious of a few years ago.

The Problem

Just like everyone else in this thread, I noticed that my power steering fluid reservoir was low when poking around in the engine bay a couple weeks ago. That's not good for something that is supposed to be a sealed system. The driver's side boot was clean(ish) and dry, but the passenger side was showing signs of a leak. Not a big one, but it was not going to fix itself. A rack swap seemed doable after reading through this thread, so off to Rock Auto I went.

What I Ordered

There were a couple options for racks - the main choice was deciding between remanufactured or new. Part numbers that might be helpful for those with similarly optioned trucks:

OEM: 44250-04030
Cardone (reman): 262629
Cardone (new): 972629

I opted for the new Cardone unit (972629) that came with new inner tie rods, a limited lifetime warranty, and no core charge. I didn't snap any pics of it, but the ones shown on the Rock Auto website are accurate. It is not an OEM casting, but the form, fit, and function appear identical.

I also ordered the following parts to go along with this:

Delphi TA5034 Outer Tie Rods (replaces OEM Toyota 45046-09340) - sealed (no grease zerks)
Sunsong 3402816 High Pressure Feed Line, Pump to Rack (replaces OEM Toyota 44410-04220)

My original inner and outer tie rods were fine, but I figured I might as well replace both while I was in there. As a side note, neither the new rack nor the new outer tie rods came with a new jam nut. I was counting on mine being seized in place after 13 Ohio winters (and one was). There were two options; buy new nuts from Toyota (part number 90170-15001, I think), or just get a couple of nuts locally. I opted for the latter - they are M16 x 1.5 nuts (fine thread); my local Home Depot actually had 3 in stock, I just had to dig for them.

I ordered the new high pressure feed line on a whim after reading about some of the woes of others in this thread - I figured worst case I'd just have to return it. In the end, having a new one on hand was a good call.

Taking Everything Apart

As stated multiple times already, before you disconnect the steering linkage, center the wheel and put the seat belt through the steering wheel to hold it in place. The steering wheel moves more than I thought it would during this process. I went after the tie rod ends first, which is where I immediately ran into trouble (this was the first sign of bad things to come). I spent the better part of an afternoon trying to free the passenger side tie rod end from the knuckle...I'll get into the details of that in another post, along with the rest of my woes. Once those were off, I disconnected the steering linkage. As already stated, all three bolts have to come all the way out in order to remove it. The top two bolts are easy to reach through the little access flap in the driver's side wheel well. The bottom bolt requires a bit more flexibility - a 12mm offset box end wrench was extremely helpful here. Getting the bolts out is one thing, getting the linkage off is quite another. What worked best for me was to grab a medium sized pry bar (about 17 inches total length), placing it against the lower universal joint in the steering linkage and then using the front differential as the anchor point to start prying it loose. I had to hammer on the end of the pry bar with a rubber mallet to finally get it to release.

The feed/return line bracket bolts came out without too much fuss, and then it was time to remove the lines from the rack. The rack will not come out unless you remove both lines completely, including the low pressure return barb fitting. I had a nice set of line wrenches, but they were absolutely useless here. The low pressure return line comes off first - you just need to squeeze the clamp to slide it up out of the way so you can pop the line off. Channel lock pliers worked best on that clamp. You can use the open end of a 17mm combination wrench to loosen the return line fitting, but I found that a 17mm pass through ratchet/socket worked best here. For the high pressure line, you are stuck using a 17mm open end wrench, which is a slow go due to the limited access. God forbid that your line was seized to the fitting like mine was - I ended up having to flip the rack up 90 degrees and pull it toward the driver's side to cut it off with a sawzall when all else failed. That SUCKED.

The steering rack bolts were the one thing that went right for me. When they reframed my truck back in 2016, the dealership tech put the bolts in from the bottom. That made things a lot easier. I was still prepared to replace them since they were so rusted, but I was able to reuse both the bolts and nuts. The bolts are a fairly one-off item - it is an M12 x 1.25 (super fine thread) x 155mm long bolt. You are best off just getting new ones from the dealership if you need it. My Google-fu told me that the part numbers were 90119-A0137 (bolt) and 90178-A0137 (nut). Better yet, just go to the parts counter with your VIN and let the dude behind the counter figure it out.

Getting the Rack Out

I made the mistake of leaving the outer tie rod ends in place, and I also did not unbolt any parts of the front sway bar like the service manual suggests. I was able to get it out, but it took me about an hour, most of which was spent cussing. The biggest help was the tip about rotating the rack forward 180 degrees to clear the front differential (as in, rotate it so the splines for the steering linkage come forward and end up facing down). Do that first, then go towards the passenger side far enough to clear the frame on the drivers side. After it clears (it is tight with the outer tie rod ends still attached), it will pull the rest of the way out going back the other way through the driver's side front corner of the frame. I'd highly recommend unbolting the sway bar bushings (but not the end links), and just let it rest on the frame so you can swing it back and forth as needed while maneuvering the rack out. Having the outer tie rod ends in place makes things a lot harder, but I wanted to make sure I got accurate measurements with it out of the truck as a starting point for setting up the new rack.

I ended up removing the passenger side front differential mounting bolt to make things somewhat easier. I had to use a big impact on it, but it did come loose, and it did help a lot. That reminds me, I need to make sure I'm up to date on my tetanus shots.

Here's another tip: do yourself a favor and take the plastic plugs out of the feed/return ports on your new rack, and use them to plug the feed/return ports on your old rack before flipping it over. Otherwise, I hope you like bathing in old power steering fluid like I ended up doing.

Putting the New Rack In

Before putting the new rack in, I took some very careful measurements of my old rack with the outer tie rods still in place. As it turns out, my old rack was not centered...I'm not sure if it was always that way, or if that happened during the reframe. Either way, I made sure that the new rack was as close as I could get to matching the old one, but centered this time. As it turned out, that was about 13 turns of the tie rods on each side. Once I had that figured out, I pulled the new outer tie rods back off to make the rack easier to fish into place.

Again, rotate the new rack 180 degrees so that the splines that attach to the steering linkage are facing down. The rack goes in through a small opening in the frame on the driver's side front corner, towards the passenger side brake/hub assembly, and then once it clears the driver's side of the frame, you can fish it back towards the driver's side where it needs to be. Once it is close, all you have to do is rotate the rack to the correct orientation (the splines will just clear the front differential).

Everything else goes back together the same way it came apart. The new Sunsong high pressure feed line was exactly the right size and shape (don't forget the new little o-ring before putting it in the port) to replace the old line that ran from the power steering pump. Make sure you also put a new o-ring on the return line fitting before screwing it into the rack.

Before you reattach the steering linkage, make sure the outer tie rods are attached to the steering knuckles. I thought everything was still nice and centered, but I was off a spline or two when I reattached the steering linkage. I could have probably made it work, but I decided to pop the steering linkage back off (which was just as much of a PITA on the new rack) to make sure it was as close to centered as possible before tightening everything down.

One note on the steering linkage - make sure it is seated as far as you can get it onto the splines of the steering rack. If you don't, you won't be able to start the bolt. I had to put a considerable amount of force on it to hold it in place while I got the bolt started. That probably took me about 30 minutes of messing with it before it was finally seated properly.

To bleed the new rack, fill the power steering reservoir, and then turn the wheel lock-to-lock a few times (the engine does not have to be running). You'll notice the fluid level in the reservoir drop substantially. Fill the reservoir back up, and keep doing it until it stops pulling in new fluid (it took about 2/3 of a quart of PS fluid).

Other Random Tips

I had most all of the tools I needed/wanted, but I'm always looking for better/easier ways to do things. The most popular bolt head sizes were 17mm and 12mm, so make sure you have a large assortment of deep/shallow sockets, combination wrenches, and offset wrenches in those sizes to cover all of the different obstructions you'll need to clear.

Since my truck was pretty rusted, I ended up doing a lot of thread cleaning/chasing. The one tap/die size I did not have on hand was M12 x 1.25. The Toyota engineers apparently liked using this particular thread size/pitch, and none of my tap and die sets had it.

I hope this helps someone out there...at the very least, it will be useful to me to go back and read if I ever have to get back in there. All in all, it took me 3 solid days of work to get everything sorted out. I was working pretty slowly, but this job was an absolute nightmare. I guess that's what you get with an older vehicle sometimes. Regardless, it doesn't leak anymore, it actually drives straight, but the steering wheel is just slightly off center. Not bad for some quick measuring and eyeballing the alignment. I'll have someone align it on a rack shortly.

 

Absolutely awesome insight!

Now, how much would it take to get you to help me do mine?

I’m also in southwest Ohio and both sides of the rack in my 2009 have been leaking... I have not had a frame replacement done and don’t think I’ll qualify looking at the frame...

I was planning to buy the same rack, high pressure hose and replacement bolts you did. My inner and outer tie rods were replaced last summer so I’ll probably reuse the outers (they have grease zerks). I also have new sway bar end links I’d like to install.

 

Heh...if it goes as poorly as mine did, there's no amount of money in the world that could convince me to give this another whirl. Since you haven't had your frame replaced, you'll have the extra aggravation of the bolts coming in from the top. About the only reason this worked out for me is because I have some forced downtime with this whole COVID-19 thing.

I attempted to remove one of the end links on mine, and it wasn't budging. I'm sure it would have eventually come out, but I was likely going to lose the fastener in the process. I hope yours is in better shape than mine was.

Every bolt I put back in had some combination of anti-seize or ARP assembly lube to keep the galling to a minimum. The rusted fasteners were probably the most stressful for me because you didn't know if you were going to end up pulling the threads out or not. It would probably be a bit different if I was either not driving this thing daily or wrenching on it more often. Some of these things haven't been touched since the truck left the assembly line, minus what they had to do during the reframe. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the techs doing the work on it during that process used an impact to tighten down any and all fasteners they could reach to save on time.

 

Haha, I figured that might be your answer. And you don’t even want to know how much rust is on the rack... the only thing I have going for me is that the suspension, tie rods, lower and upper control arms and pretty much every bolt in those areas has been loosened or removed recently. The only bolts I’m worried about are the two steering rack bolts (will probably just cut them both off and replace from the bottom) and if I need to undo one, or both of the differential mounting bolts.

Honestly, I still haven’t decided if I’m willing to tackle this project on my own or if I’ll just break down and pay a local mechanic to deal with it...

 

It's not a hateful job...you just need a plan for all the potential problems that can come up. I'd be curious to know what a shop would charge to do the job. I wasn't about to even ask a dealership what they would want. I have a lot of tools, but I don't have a lift, and I don't have any air tools. I did this on my back by myself in my garage while the front of the truck was supported on jack stands. Not ideal.

You have a solid plan for the steering rack bolts - just cut them off and slap some new ones on. I wouldn't even think twice about doing it any other way. As for the differential bolts, the only one that was in the way was on the passenger side toward the front. The diff will sag a bit when you take it out, but it is still held in place well enough that you can work around it without worrying about it falling.

Now that I think about it, you just need a plan to be able to cut off whatever won't come out. For me, that was the high pressure line. I'll get to that a little later along with my outer tie rod adventure.

 

The google tells me to expect a shop to charge anywhere from $350-$750 in labor alone...

And, I’m not gonna lie, I’m highly concerned about rust on the intermediate steering shaft and linkage and I’m 100% sure the high pressure lines will be all kinds of seized. I’ll gladly purchase a new line ahead of time but my concern is that I believe the removable nipple piece will need to be transferred over to the new rack. And I don’t know if I can buy a new one of those...

I kind of wish I could just unbolt and remove the outer tie rods, set them aside and then cut the rack up like it’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre part IV. Then I’d just remove it in pieces. I’d just have to make sure I’ve got enough room to squeeze the new one back in place and bolt it down from the bottom.

 

The low pressure side "removable nipple piece" does indeed need to be transferred over to the new rack. Mine came out without issue, and in one, reusable piece.

But fear not, for Rock Auto has you covered there too:

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=10898036&cc=1434686&jsn=12194

Need both the high pressure feed and low pressure return lines? This would cover you, and come with new mounting brackets too:

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=7653056&cc=1434686&jsn=12204

And you'll have to trust me that there isn't enough room to get much of any type of cutting device near the rack without taking out a whole bunch of other stuff in the process.

 

Here is what I’ve got in my cart so far...



Now I just need to find Toyota part numbers for every bolt and nut I’ll be cutting or removing. After what I went through removing and replacing the rusted rear bumper support bar, I don’t even want to deal with having to reuse any of the rusted hardware... Can you double check that part number for the nut @Steve-O ? Also, I’ve found two different part numbers for the bolt, apparently two different lengths...

 

I'm not 100% sure about those part numbers. The only way you could 100% know you had the right part was if you gave your VIN to the person at the parts counter at the dealership and let them verify it in their system.

Toyota has many flaws, but their parts distribution/network isn't one of them. I'd put the burden on them for this one.

 

The only problem with that is the cost of buying them locally... most of the time I can get OEM parts from Toyota dealerships online for significantly less than going to Kings Toyota (the closest dealership to me).

I’ll just have to poke around and look at some diagrams. I did the same thing for my rear brakes when I bought new hardlines, mounting brackets and bolts. It’s just a tedious process...

 

So I guess I did actually get a picture of my old and the new power steering rack that went in.

Here's the old one that came out:



The driver's side boot looks wet, but that's only because that's where all of my power steering fluid leaked out during the process of removing it from the truck. It was actually dry before getting in to all of this.

And here's what the new Cardone rack looked like:

 

And now, on to the problem children that made this job a nightmare for me.

Outer Tie Rod Ends

If you poke around on YouTube, you'll find plenty of videos about how to remove outer tie rod ends from steering knuckles. I had never needed to remove one until now, so I watched as many videos as I could find. Just a firm tap or two with a mallet on the knuckle, and they'll just pop right out. Sweet.

So I tried that first. On the driver's side, I started with a small brass hammer so I didn't mark anything up too badly. That wasn't working, so I got my small sledge (~3 lb or so), and started hitting it progressively harder until I was worried that I would break something. That clearly wasn't working, so I reached for my pickle fork set next.

Unfortunately, I don't have a large compressor, so I did not have an air hammer at my disposal. You can still do decent work with a pickle fork and a regular hammer, though, and I knew that this method should work. The catch is that with a pickle fork, you have to be willing to destroy the rubber boots, because that is pretty much guaranteed to happen (and it did). I had new outer tie rod ends on hand, so I had nothing to lose, and I had already lost about an hour at this point. After a few smacks of my small sledge using the smallest pickle fork in the set, the driver's side finally let go. Now on to the passenger side.

This is where everything fell apart. I had already tried smacking the knuckle with a hammer. The pickle fork worked on the driver's side, so it had to work here, right? Heh...not quite:



Well shit, that ain't supposed to happen. How did it happen? I was using the pickle fork upside down because the correct way wasn't working, and I was frustrated. I was pretty defeated at this point, so I decided to go look for a different tool. An hour trip to Harbor Freight and $20 later, I came home with this little guy:



This thing fit perfectly, so I grabbed my favorite 1/2" ratchet and a 3/4" socket and started going to town. And by "going to town", I mean this:



The package on that tool said "forged", which to me means it should be pretty stout (and it did weigh a fair amount). Maybe something got lost in translation. When that thing let go, it scared the shit out of me...I'm just glad my head wasn't in the way, because that piece flew off.

Back to the drawing board. I tried clamping a pair of vice grips to the ball and smacking that with a hammer...nope. I went to my closest Auto Zone to see if they had one of the large C-clamp ball joint removal sets available to rent, but they did not. So I went to O'Reilly's next. They had the ball joint removal set, and I also decided to pick up a propane torch since I didn't have one of those handy. I spent about the next hour going back and forth between the big ass C-clamp and the torch + penetrating oil to no avail. I sent quite a few texts back and forth to one of my buddies, and he was equally dumbfounded. At this point, I was frustrated as all hell envisioning having to remove the entire assembly just so I could get it in a press. For reasons unknown, I decided to try the pickle fork again, and it finally let go:



And no, that little impact driver was not used in any part of this little ordeal, it just so happened to be in the picture at the time.

In the end, the pickle fork won, but I also learned a very valuable lesson: pay very close attention to where the pickle fork tongs will end up poking out on the other side before you start wailing on it. When I first started working on this side, I wasn't paying attention to what the pickle fork might hit/damage if it went too far. I just couldn't get the pickle fork to budge at one point (and not for lack of me trying), so I stopped and had some lunch. When I came back about 20 minutes later, I started looking at things a little more critically - that's when I realized that the pickle fork was being stopped by the brake rotor backing plate. I ended up punching a hole through it that forced me to later remove the brake rotor and pound the backing plate back out so it didn't scrape the rotor. I'm real special sometimes. Learn from my mistakes so you don't have to repeat them.

High Pressure Line Fitting

I know this problem has popped up for a few others in this thread, and it happened to me too. For those that don't know, the ports on the power steering rack are sealed by small o-rings that are seated on flared tube ends. The threaded collar on the high pressure side simply keeps the tube/o-ring in place, and should spin freely of the tube itself (the threads/collar don't provide any type of seal). For whatever reason, the threaded collar seized on the tube on mine, so although I was able to loosen the fitting, the tube was spinning with it, thus making it impossible to loosen due to the tube hitting everything that's in the way down there. If you can't get it out, you won't be getting the rack out.

The only way I was able to fix it was by grabbing my sawzall with a 9" metal cutting blade. I was VERY careful to make sure I didn't cut anything else in the process. I was able to get just the tip on it, just for a second, and it felt great. This is what was left:



I have no idea why that happened, but it did. I'm just glad I had a new line on hand already.

 

Finally, this is how far my steering wheel ended up being off:



And this is what the alignment looked like before/after:



It wasn't too bad...I meant to err on the side of too much toe-in, and that's exactly what I had. The truck drove straight down the road, minus the steering wheel being cocked off to the right a bit. Not bad for a tape measure and eyeballing it.

 

Excellent work on the post install DIY alignment!

And I just placed an order for the new Cardone rack, both lines and that little nipple, just in case. I still need to track down some new bolts and nuts and I should be ready to tackle this project. I’ll definitely need a set of pickle forks to install the Energy Suspension poly bushings into the new rack but I’m hoping my outer tie rods pop loose a lot easier considering they were just replaced late last summer. I’ll pickup a few new blades for the sawzall and a cutting wheel or two for the angle grinder too, as I fully expect to be cutting the original bolts and lines out. No need to make things any more difficult than I have to since I won’t be reusing anything other than my outer tie rod ends.

 

Still waiting on the hoses and new bolts but I have my new Cardone rack and Energy Suspension bushings.



Need to find a set of pickle forks and get the truck into position so I can begin the removal of the old rack...