[TEJASYOTA]

Well, so what happens when you try to wheel with the big boys at Hidden Falls Adv Park?


and this...


You are bound now or later to have this happen


Having major help from Jason, Kevin, Chad & Shiner on recovering me.
Well what we found was that the Inner Tie Rod had bent and same as the steering rack bracket.

The shaft to the left should be centered to the ball joint housing on the right.


The upper mounting bolt should be horizontal.


Busted bushing


So the day after (today), I took the skid plate off and everything else looks okay... no kinked hydraulic lines (good).
So far I looks like I will need a need a new mounting clamp and urethane bushings. Then figure out how to straighten out that bolt.

I will update this thread as I go.

 

[ROCTAC]

Glad it's not going to require any cutting and welding. I will say your truck made obstacles over and over that I thought you had no shot at. Great driving! We need to work on Brian getting some of his video and pics posted of you on TRO.

 

[speedemon55]

Time for a solid axle!

 

[TEJASYOTA]

Glad it's not going to require any cutting and welding. I will say your truck made obstacles over and over that I thought you had no shot at. Great driving! We need to work on Brian getting some of his video and pics posted of you on TRO.

I contribute it to great spotters (you and Brian) for me making it over those obstacles.

Once I get the parts, I will head over to my friend's garage to see what we have. We think that the bolt is the only thing that bent.
But we shall see... I hope that Jaybird got my PM for the list of parts last night.

Time for a solid axle!

Not yet.

 

[hossmaster]

i may have the u clamp, i can look if you want

 

[TEJASYOTA]

I just ordered it... Due in next week....thanks for the offer.

 

[TEJASYOTA]

Time for a solid axle!

Or a dedicated trail rig..

 

[TEJASYOTA]

I have all the parts, big thanks to Jaybird, a new steering rack clamp, bushings (not from Jay) for the rack and lower ball joints & bolts. Now to wait for Saturday to arrive.

 

[speedemon55]

Or a dedicated trail rig..

It looks like your gears are turning.

I have all the parts, big thanks to Jaybird, a new steering rack clamp, bushings (not from Jay) for the rack and lower ball joints & bolts. Now to wait for Saturday to arrive.

Hey since you're the only person I know left with a Tacoma, do you need to replace your upper ball joints? I ran across some oem Toyota ones that I have had laying Around for a while.

 

[TEJASYOTA]

My uppers are Total Chaos UCAs.... thanks for the offer Kevin.

 

[TEJASYOTA]

Well at 7am... I started working on the steering rack - - again.
We pulled the outer tie rods from the hub assy, loosened the rack, pulled the bracket off and saw that the upper stud was NOT bent (sort of good), but the cross-member that it is threaded into the weld nut, was out of sorts.


The steering rack bracket


The cross member - note that the metal on the frame has bent, but not the bolt, as shown above photo.


But there was something else that I saw that was NOT on the refurbished steering rack when I installed it.
Can you tell....


The heavy corrosion that was hidden by bondo and paint.
Guess I will be calling the RACK DOCTOR.com on Monday about this.
I will not go off-roading with something was fixed to look good outside, but looking like that on the underside.
It would be a matter of time for it to have a catastrophic failure.

Anyways, i have to get my truck rolling... so we broke off the weld nut, and inserted a new Grade-8 M14-1.5 nut and bolt.
We used a BFH and a body hammer to flatten the metal.


After hammering.


I then asked my friend to see if he had any rubber strip to use to fill in that corroded area, if i only used the new bushing, there would be a gap between it and the steering rack - ie it would allow it to move, there was not enough surface area for it to grab it.
We did not want to use any metal shims, because it would be metal to metal contact and cause it to fail sooner (ie like a file removing metal).
We found an old rubber radiator hose and trimmed it to length and it did the job perfectly.

Sorry no pics of that.
Anyways, we bolted and torqued everything back down, tape measured - string measured the alignment and all was done for today.
I will schedule for an appointment to get the truck aligned again.

We opted not to do the LBJ at this time.
It was already noon and getting fricking hot.

Other than the corrosion, everything worked great.
BIG THANKS to JAYBIRD323 for getting all my parts.

 

[TEJASYOTA]

Next time I remove the rack, I will use my handy dandy depth mic to tell ya how deep that corrosion is.

I emailed the Rack Doctor (Richard) to see if he is willing to do a swap for my rack that I returned to him.. all it needed was new seals.
And I would pay for the shipment for this corroded rack back to him, since I used it and installed it.
Hope he says yes.

 

[TEJASYOTA]

Well it has been a while since I have updated this post.... So here goes...
Dax of The Rack Doctor contacted me after I contacted them about the issue I found.
We talked about what I found and what lead up to the finding of this issue.
First they do not use bondo... They use an epoxy filler for areas that have pits and corrosion.
Second, as far as he can remember, out of the thousands of racks they have sold, I am the first to have filed a claim for the epoxy for failing.
He also reminded me that according to their life time warranty that since I offload my truck, they do not need to honor the warranty.... Yep...that is true...
Here is the last sentence from their fine print.

Vehicles used for off road, Racing of any kind, vehicles with modified engines or modified suspension VOIDS WARRANTY.

Then in the same discussion, he was happy that I told him everything and that he will discuss the situation with Richard, the owner of Rack Doctor.
I told him, I would appreciate any thing they can do.
So a handful of days later, we talked again.
In short they are willing to do the following...
If I pay for shipping the replacement rack to me, pay for the shipment back of the damaged rack and pay a refundable core charge of $50?
I immediately said "you bet, i agree and thank you and Richard".

So the total would be $86...$18 for shipping x2 and the core charge.
I will PayPal them next week,
I should get the replacement soon after and then I will replace the corroded unit and I will get better photos and depth measurements of the corrosion.

So 5-stars for the Rack Doctor.
So the next time I need to replace a leaking seal, like my original factory unit, I will get the seal kit.

 

[TEJASYOTA]

My new refurb steering rack arrived!!!
I will try to get it installed in the next couple weekends.

 

[TEJASYOTA]

Install my new refurb steering rack = = I really hope this one of the last times I have to do this.
I did a measurement, the corrosion was 0.070-inches.