Is my steering rack going out?

Hey Guys,
Just trying to get a 2nd opinion on a problem I have with my Tacoma before I go spend $100 on diag work at a mechanic. My truck is making a concerning almost popping/cracking noise from the front of the car when I turn at slower speeds/ wiggle the steering wheel when stopped. It started almost immediately after I completed a full front end rebuild 2 months ago(upper/lower control arms, CV axles, Struts, inner/outer tie rods, sway bar links, brakes).

What Ive done to try to diagnose it: I had my dad wiggle the steering wheel as I stand in front of the car, it sounds like its coming from the front, lower middle of the car, which is exactly where the steering rack is. I took the inner tie rod boots off and there was a few drops of power steering fluid under the boots, not a lot but enough that I noticed. I took the front tires off and double checked that all of the bolts I touched were all still tight and it all checked out. I did use a torq wrench to tightened them all on initially so I feel pretty confidant its not that. The steering is still smooth and not jumpy, but it does seem to float a little more then normal, and sometimes it seems like the steering wheel needs to be at 11 or 1 o'clock position to stay straight instead of the middle and sometimes it is centered, I had an alignment performed after I did all that work, and they checked it again a month later.

Essentially I like to self-perform all the work on this truck, and I leave to go back to college where I don't have any tools in 3 weeks so Id like to get this ironed out before I leave. The Truck just crossed over 200k miles and im pretty confidant this is still the stock rack.

 

Racks do these 3 things. before they quit. (1) they make noise. (2) they leak. (3) they lock up.......sometimes going down the road.

 

Could be the upper or intermediate steering shaft/joint. Pretty common for the upper one to go bad on 2nd gens. They make a lot of noise under certain bumps/road conditions.

If your rack is leaking you are on borrowed time. I would recommend to replace it asap.

What is the year and exact model of your Tacoma?

 

Thank you for your reply! Its a 2009 TRD off-road double cab short bed. I've been reading about the intermediate shafts going bad, but I feel like if it was that, the noise would be more noticeable in the cab(very quiet if the windows are up), or have some feeling of something loose/jerky in the steering wheel. If not for the noise I wouldn't think anything was wrong as steering wheel is still smooth and except a little more floating while driving it still seems to drive as well as a 200k mile truck should. I will take the boots off of the inner tie rods later today to see if there's any more fluid. When I saw some fluid in there, it was around 3 weeks ago and a super small amount, like just a few drops, but I did clean it out so if there's more then its probably a leak.

 

Mine did that. Ended up being the two long bolts for the front diff. Same bolts as a diff drop. Grease the crap out of them and it went away. Also had the same thing on a gx470 that i worked on.

Since you can recreate the noise parked.
Pick up a mechanics stethoscope and prob around w the skids off.


Ive so had a similar noise from my trd pro skid plate when it didnt match up correctly with my transmission skid. Frame would flex.