Leaking Rack & Pinion

Good catch, its been a long day.
Been going okay so far...the dollar $igns are just racking up (no pun intended) I could think of 100 more fun places to put this money on the truck...
Hard part starts tomorrow.

 

I bought my hose from Napa, and it's still going strong. The quality was nice, so I'd look there.

For the intermediate steering shaft, all I can say is good luck! To get it off the steering rack, a crowbar will be your friend. To get the upper part off, use a flat head screwdriver and work it up and down the yoke, hammering it in. This will spread it and make it easier to come off.

I have my old yoke and bolts laying around I can ship you if you want. Can drop it in the mail tomorrow and it'll be there Wednesday. All I ask is you cover the $7 in shipping.

 

PM'd
edit: by the way do you have a part number for the hoses? Also did it come with the male nipple that screws into the rack for the rubber hose?

 

Lemme go look for that yoke and I’ll grab you a p/n. But yeah it had everything I needed on it. If you go on the Napa website and plug in your vehicle info, it should come up.

 

Thanks for the Yoke @EatSleepTacos !!

Update: Rack and Intermediate Steering Shaft are out! Took a lot of heat, prying, banging and stringing together every profanity in my memory bank. Dreading the replacement...
Will I need to remove the inner tie rod ends to get the new one back in??

New Intermediate Steering Shaft from stealership
Also, got a new Steel Line (7-6733) and a male hose fitting, for the rubber hose going into the rack (7-1307) from NAPA. Both were messed up getting them out. Rust is a bitch, I envy you southern drivers.
Started getting the R&P bushings out of the new rack...super PITA by the way. Finish up getting the new Poly bushings pressed in tomorrow and let the FUN continue.
I only plan on doing this once with this truck, might just as well do it right.

 

I left the inner tie rods on the new rack when putting it on. Just takes some finagling to get it right! Good luck and be patient. You got the hard part done.

 

I think the deal is that a very resourceful guy discovered a grease-able ujoint from the ATV world that happens to fit exactly into our steering shaft. So, 100% DIY.

 

Update:

Old bushings are out of the new rack and new poly ones are in. That was a lot of fustrating work...but worth it.
Got the rack back in the truck, which wasn't too bad. Had to loosen the sway bar that was about it, tilt the rack away from the front of truck, slide passange side in first as far as possible allowing drivers side to clear frame, rotate 180 degrees in. A little more swearing and it was in!

I am disappointed that the steering wheel is off about 1/4 to a 1/2 turn, I paid close attention to that process. I must not have centered the inner tie rod ends perfecty before attaching the new ISS. Guess that will get addressed with the alignment. Right?

Just need to finish plumbing the high pressure line to the pump, bleed and flush the system (check for leaks ) and I should be good to go.
Anyone have some good videos on the flush and bleed process?

Hey @EatSleepTacos I was able to clean up the yoke I had. But I'll hold on to the one you sent for the next guy. I had a window to work on the truck and had to make the best of it. Thanks again for taking the time to send that to me!

 

Dibs on the yoke. Mine is too rusted to salvage

Edit: it sounds like you misaligned the splines on the R&P and lower intermediate shaft.

Buy the way, do you have a pic of your contraption using a bike tire tube full of grease over the ujoint?

 

7.00 and its yours, same deal @EatSleepTacos made me, I evened it up to 10.00. PM me and I'll get your address and my paypal info.
This will be a well traveled yoke!

 

Good deal man!! So if your steering wheel is too off, they can’t align it. My first go around my wheel was completely upside down while driving straight. I had to undo the ISS from the rack, rotate 180° and bolt it back on. No problems since. Hopefully yours isn’t too terribly off to the point they can’t fix it with alignment.

 

Well shit
How much can they clock off in the steering wheel?

 

PM'd

 

At least it’s an easy fix! Just undo the one bolt, pop the intermediate shaft off the rack, rotate, bolt back up.

 

I think I'll need to loosen where it bolts the the rack and the upper steering shaft to get enough wiggle room to slide the ISS of the rack. But yeah shouldn't be too bad if the yokes split easy.

 

All set. I ended up taking the R&P bolt out of the the drivers side and loosening the passanger side so I could adjust the ISS. Steering wheel dead on now...but I am sure I ll still need an alignment. Just need to bleed/flush the powersteering pump.

Thanks again guys, could not have done it without your help!

 

@Freeheelbillie where are you located? I'm going to be pursuing this too quite soon. I have a super slow leak due to a torn boot on my passenger side. I'm still trying to figure out if I can get by with just a new boot and tie rod ends (might as well). It's probably the best place to start.

 

Saint Clair, MI.
PM me happy to help anyway I can.
Don't wait and smoke your pump too...its not that bad of a job, just takes time.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/how-to-do-an-alignment-at-home.252256/page-14#post-18950207

@ItalynStylion just make sure your pump doesn't run dry and you can use stop leak from any auto parts store.
I was in the same situation as you and didn't do anything for too long.
You need to fix the torn boot asap. See my previous posts

 

I've been keeping an eye on the fluid level. Truth be told, it isn't even low. I swapped the fluid this past weekend and cleaned the boot area so I could assess the rate at which fluid is leaving the system. I think it's VERY slow. It might even just be a bit of blow by that's only being seen because the boot is torn. The tie rod ends would get replaced with or without doing a full rack replacement so I'm going to start there and replace the boot along with it. If that does the job that saves me a lot of time and money. If later on the leak proves to be bad enough the new boot gets filled I'm only out the cost of one boot and the time to replace it.