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Wheel alignment

3K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  terryj5 
#1 ·
Wondering of there's any part I can replace or beef up which will prevent me from needing wheel alignments as often as I do? It seems like it gets knocked out of whack extremely easy and every time it always pulls to the left and I need to turn the steering wheel to the right to go strait. I've had quite a few alignments and it always goes that way kinda strange. Its getting annoying because alignments aren't cheap and my tires wear badly if I don't get it done.
 
#2 ·
I'm assuming your steering rack is worn out or the bushings need replaced. The common problem is worn bushings, but your problem sounds like your rack skips a tooth. I'd replace the rack and install poly bushings at the same time. You should also check your tie rods at the same time.
 
#4 ·
Worn rack mount bushings are common but usually result in sloppy steering and/or the steering wheel not straight with variable degrees of "not straight" that can fluctuate while driving.

If a steering rack to skipped a tooth, from wear, impact or what ever, you would know it and steering wheel would be off in excess of 180 deg not to mention the rack would be so messed up as to be nearly un-drivable. No "alignment" would cure this.

Other than the common worn bushings I would look at the adjusting cam bolts on the lower control arms. They need to be tightened to every bit of the 96 ft lbs called for by Toyota. It is common for "generic" alignment shops to fail to tighten them enough. If the bolts are not tight enough the cams can move and fubar the alignment. Things can be fine with normal "on road" use, not until the stresses of "off road" use occur do the cams slip.
 
#5 ·
I forgot to mention a few months ago a person drove into the driver side front tire pretty hard. I took it to a shop to get fixed they said it was just cosmetic damage and the auto body work was done. I came to pick it up and noticed the steering wheel was extremely sloppy there was an inch or 2 of play in the steering wheel before it actually did any steering. I had to argue forever with the shop that that's not how its supposed to steer. Eventually they took it back and changed the "so they say" the bushings and rack. The play in the steering was a bit less but it still there pre-accident there was none.

I read on here the tacomas collapsible steering column and that can cause play in the steering and a chatter over bumps which I get. That wouldn't cause the above alignment issues mentioned above though would it?

And yes terryj5 if i am doing normal on road use it stays for the most part strait but even with light/delicate off-roading for a short period of time its off again and always the same direction.
 
#7 ·
I forgot to mention a few months ago a person drove into the driver side front tire pretty hard. I took it to a shop to get fixed they said it was just cosmetic damage and the auto body work was done. I came to pick it up and noticed the steering wheel was extremely sloppy there was an inch or 2 of play in the steering wheel before it actually did any steering. I had to argue forever with the shop that that's not how its supposed to steer. Eventually they took it back and changed the "so they say" the bushings and rack. The play in the steering was a bit less but it still there pre-accident there was none.

I read on here the tacomas collapsible steering column and that can cause play in the steering and a chatter over bumps which I get. That wouldn't cause the above alignment issues mentioned above though would it?

And yes terryj5 if i am doing normal on road use it stays for the most part strait but even with light/delicate off-roading for a short period of time its off again and always the same direction.

It is possible that you may be dealing with a combination of issues due to the wreck, hard to tell over the air. Treat the info you find as "ideas" or areas to look into. Unless the shop you are dealing with is "family", regard anything they "say" with great suspicion.

The steering column issue usually results in clunking and a little bit of play. The joint can bind up at one end of the play, just like a wrench getting stuck on a bolt head (just before it rounds off). This is however a minor thing and the joint will "pop" loose when the steering is turned the other way.
Read this http://www.ttora.com/forum/showthread.php?t=161689&highlight=steering+rattle The short cut starts on post #42. If your rack had somehow skipped a tooth your steering wheel would be off almost exactly like the pic in post #37.

Let me elaborate on this "skipping a tooth" thing. I really feel that for this to occur the teeth would almost have to be sheared or mostly destroyed and again no amount of aligning would fix it.
I did a ton of work a few years ago trying come up with a fix for the failure prone roller style rack guide before it became known that Toyota had come up with a better guide. Here are some shots of the maximum amount (0.034") of "front to back play" of a rack shaft (with about 150K miles on it) with the rack guide completely removed. The teeth have 5 times more contact than that. Note that up and down play can be 3 or 4 times this amount but it is inline with the gear teeth and does not contribute much if anything to the rack gear mesh, just loose steering.

Keep at it!


 
#6 ·
a worn of defective rack guide could allow the
rack's internals to jump a tooth if jarred hard enough.

Or it could be that the service person didn't torque
things down properly.

On your statement that it was hit...
explains initially at least, your misalignment troubles.

If it's a new rack... it shouldn't be mount bushings to blame.
Tho' those are usually to blame for trucks with older steering racks.

Do you know if they swapped in a long or short rack ?

reason I ask... is if they reused the inner tie-rod ends...
they could have some play or slop (damage) from the incident.

get someone to turn yer steering wheel (back ~n~ forth)...
while you crawl under there and look for any movement or play
 
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