Steering Rag Joint Mod, Phase-1

Wow! It's been so long I nearly forgot about this thread.
MANY THANKS to Passion4outdoors for posting this up! It seems that by shortening that shaft you are pre-loading all the rubber in the system a bit & that's taking out the clunk.

Well I've had the Tacoma 7 years & 45,000 miles now, and it has not failed me once since the initial fan belt toss. It has steered better than stock & so I have never gone beyond phase-1.

Mine always felt rubbery, but I haven't experienced any real clunk on mine, since I'd never taken it on a real trail nor hardly on a dirt road, before doing the phase-1 mod.

It seems that by trussing that rag joint up tight with zip-ties, I unconsciously did the same thing as Passion4: I shoved the steering rubbers all tighter against whatever they bear on.

As long as upon hard re-bound, the lower half does't pull completely out of the upper half, I don't see much wrong with doing this.

IMO these Tacomas and Tundras have very soft cushions on everything. A-arms, engine mounts, driveshaft carrier, rack etc. This is just typical of Toyotas, & by pre-loading these soft rubbers we just take up some "slop".

Anyhow, my phase-2 mod turned out to be impractical, and apparently would be pretty useless, from what Passion4outdoors posted above.

Right now I'm going to be looking for new shocks & tires. Mine are tired, and I'll possibly need new front brakes soon as well. I'll have to do my own brake inspection, as the dealer seems to mark contradictory things on the charts.

OT Stuff:
The Nomad never got traded, but I've burned the bever drive bearings up with too much hotrodding, so It's laid up.

I never did the Adenalina, but I'm still skating 5 or 6 times a week, and have been at 170 lbs for about 2 years steady.

I also joined a hotrod forum & have been preparing to re-build my old Plymouth. She's almost all bare metal on the exterior body & I'll start stripping the rest soon.

I bought a welding torch, after not having one for 30 years, & started welding again.

The Plymouth will need some of the floor board replaced, a couple body mounts repaired, and there's a small spot of rust. The car had a fair amount of bondo & some lead work, but very little actual rust.

 

Subbed - My truck handles like a shopping cart.

 

Oh, well, it's jacked up from the factory. It's a wonder they handle as well as they do.

 

Bringing back an old thread, but I need help. The Viton bushing on my 14 slipped off and I can't for the life of me get it back on the shaft. Any ideas?!

 

Stealership

 

Yeah, have an appointment this weekend... But dint want to go. They had no idea what I was talking about.

Said it was because of my lift kit.. Wtf

 

Grrrr, nothing to do with your lift!!

 

Reviving a now much older thread... how in the world did you deal with that???

Came here looking to clean up the steering slop and I am excited to try shortening the shaft