Anyone replaced a steering rack bushing?

He was wearing open-toed sandals, but I cropped that out of the pic, lol

 

Supervised, of course!

Actually, the main reason I had him help is because his smaller hands fit in there better, and he could more easily get the bushings in place.

Also, my daughter gets in on the action, too.

 

That's awesome. Hope I can do the same in a few years.

 

Anyone else have an issue putting the bolts back in? I got the two singular bolts in fine, but for this one (pictured) where the two bolts hold in the side, I screwed up and the bottom bolt got stuck threading in, then popped off the nut that was welded inside the crossmember. The top bolt for me popped out also into the crossmember (the nut on the end also wasn't attached to the crossmember from the get-go). I had watched a couple youtube videos previous to trying this job myself, and everything had gone really smoothly for everyone else. It had gone smoothly for me until I was trying to bolt these last two in. The bottom bolt being stuck in the nut that had popped off the cross member, I had to cut the bolt out between the U-shaped thing and the crossmember, and fish out the nut on the inside with a magnet dangling from a wire, as the only hole to access that internally is tiny. Now, I am going to have to take my tacoma into the local dealership to have them probably un-weld that part of the crossmember to get it out, and finish putting it back together.

 

The collar for the largest bushing does have a top and bottom orientation. Are you certain you had it orientated correctly? It might differ a bit over the years (might not too, I can't say) but as you can see in this picture, a bolt goes through the bottom and the top gets a nut. The collar only goes on one way correctly for me.

 

Update. Finally finished this project this afternoon. Jack stands 110% are required if you ask me to free up the steering rack. Made it move easier and it took me 20 minutes once I could actually move the rack. Thanks for all the tips and tricks. I looked at the old bushings and sadly I didn’t see anything wrong with them I think they just wanted money…. Anyways thanks again guys

 

Mine was that way also. Every video I watched said to put on the right side nut & bolt, and the bolt on the other end of the rack in first, in order to line up the center bolt hole. That worked for me.

 

Does anyone know if you are supposed to grease the large bushing? One videos shows the guy doing it and the other he does not.

 

the steering rack is a stationary part with a little load put on it. no grease needed (at least I have never needed to)

 

Only if you're doing poly bushings

 

but not for steering rack as they don't "move" like control arm bushings

the only issue I had with the steering rack bushings going bad was from a rust hole that leaked and cut into the poly bushing :/

 

If they didn't move, they wouldn't be bushings

 

I ordered the energy suspension poly bushing set. So grease the poly bushings? It does seem like this section would just be bolted in if there was no movement, but I am new to this game. Grease/no grease is the easy part of this repair.

 

The ES bushings should have come with some white goop that you "grease" them with. It's stickier than grease

 

It is just the large bushing that clamps around the rack that I am curious about. I definitely plan to grease the other two.

The videos that I have seen seem to do it both ways. I think I will just grade them all as it doesn't seem like it could hurt.

 

DANCO 0.5 oz. Silicone Faucet Grease 88693 - The Home Depot

 

Be sure to use a silicon based grease as O'Silver Taco suggests. I use the ES grease, stuff is sticky as hell and I use it for a lot of other things for that reason. Don't use petroleum based grease.

The only reason you need to grease them is to avoid squeaking, which poly is notorious for.