3rd Gen Steering Rack, Over Centre/Pre-load Adjustment.

This is my first write-up attempt so forgive me if there are any hiccups in it... my writing style lacks tact at times so I apologize in advance for that aswell.

Disclaimer: This write-up is written with alot of assumptions that this is not your first time pulling a wrench and that you have enough experience to troubleshoot basic issues you may run into. If you're not comfortable working on your own vehicle and decide you want to be a cowboy and try it anyways, understand I bear no responsibility for your vehicle and others on the road around you. You will be performing a task on a critical control device of your vehicle in a way that was not intended by the manufacturer. There is potential for things to go sideways and leave you or others at a serious risk for harm or a fatal injury. Attempting this repair, similar to anything else in life will not make you a hero.

"You're only a hero if we make you one"

This is a relatively easy job but it does have a degree of subjective feel to it.

As suggestions and improvements are offered i'll update this thread. If you ask 10 people how to boil water you'll get 13 different answers, meaning the way I describe may not be the way that works best for you. I'm just aiming to provide a general guide on completing the task. On the other end watching Gordon Ramsey cook doesn't make you a chef, reading this write up wouldn't make you a mechanic.

I pursued performing this adjustment as I had a knocking noise over bumps that I traced to the steering rack.

It's important that if you're pursuing this adjustment you know that if your rack is leaking this will not stop that. If it's notably stiffer in the steering wheel the further away from the centre position you get then you wouldn't achieve ideal results. Either of those two situations will require replacement of the steering rack for full satisfaction. To rectify a noise concern verify the rack is the source by inspecting the whole front end.

On these trucks (and all other vehicles with a SLA / Double Wishbone front suspension that has the spring secured to the lower control arm) that's properly done by having the front end safe and securely resting on jack stands under the lower control arm, as near the lower ball joint as possible while leaving atleast an inch gap from the wheel. If you inspect for loose front end components with the suspension in a free hanging position, you could potentially put components in a bind and find everything to be tight when in reality it's bound up at that angle and deceiving you. Don't forget to carefully inspect the sway bar bushings. In my experience, the bar bushings and a worn steering rack can produce similar sounds. If your bar bushings are heavily oval'd out then there is a good chance it could be the cause of your noise. To know 100% disconnect both sway bar links from your knuckles and secure them and the bars away from contacting anything and go for a test drive. If the noise disappears then it's either a link or bar bushing concern. Lastly it could be the steering rack bushings. To isolate that one I would either carefully ratchet strap the rack to the frame and go for a drive or if the noise can be recreated with the engine off and vehicle not moving then I would try putting tension on the rack with a prybar and see if the noise changes or goes away.

Point of that runaway paragraph is to portray that a similar sounding noise does not mean the same problem. Especially online where audio recordings can be distorted.

I isolated my noise to the steering rack by having a helper rock the steering wheel mildly aggressively with the engine off while applying firm hand pressure to the rack itself on the driver side behind the inner tie rod boot in the direction of the back of the vehicle and/or towards the ground.

Note: If you apply pressure to the rack and the noise is still present, slide your hand a few inches outward from the rack onto the inner tie rod. If the noise goes away when your hand is on the inner tie rod then the inner tie rod is actually your issue.

Once you've verified the source of your noise or otherwise decided to proceed, you'll need:

• Channel lock pliers
  
• Brake clean
• Wire brush or pick
• Magnet pickup tool
• Paint pen or vibrant colour marker
• Thread sealant
• Moly Grease
• 24MM Wrench
• 24MM Allen key/Socket (Tool)

I made a 24MM Allen... tool by getting a bolt and two nuts with an outside size of 24MM then locking the nuts together over the bolt with grey locktite. I wouldn't use a bolt more than 2" in length if you go this route too or you'll run into accessibility issues. Another helpful suggestion is to lock the nuts together so that they line up at the flats. You can verify they're lined up by dropping your tool into a deep socket. It should look like this.



1.) To get started with your adjustment you want to have both wheels off the ground and steering wheel centred.
Note: Most steering racks are meant to have a slight bind over centre so if you adjust off centre you'll end up tightening the rack too much. You don't need it precisely centred but, if it's off by 1/8 of a turn then you're gonna run into problems trying to dial it in.

1b.) Looking through the driver side wheel well, this is the adjustment circled in purple
Note: I highly recommend making a clear mark on the adjuster with your marker or pen along with getting a feel for steering your truck with the wheels in the air. I would suggest doing 1/4 in each direction back and forth over centre until you get a muscle memory feel. This will speed up and aid in the final setup.


2.) Insert your 24MM... tool into the adjustment and count the turns while you spin it out. I used a wrench around the nut flats of my tool to do this. There is a lock "nut" around the adjuster but I found it easier to just spin everything out together instead of trying remove the lock nut separately. It's not in very tight.

3.) Once you get the adjuster out, using your magnet fish out the spring and tensioner from the pocket.
Note: You may find grease on things you remove which is normal but if you find power steering fluid on the components then get your lemonade stand setup to make some money because your rack is leaking and should be replaced. If your inner tie rod boots are still dry then you caught it early but ultimately you're working within a cavity of the rack that is not apart of the hydraulics and therefore should not have any power steering fluid in it.

These are all the pieces you should have retrieved from the bore.

3b.) separate the adjuster from the square lock nut around it. I just clamped it in a vice lightly and used my tool to spin it out like this.

4.) Clean everything up, you don't need to spit shine anything but the guide is a machined surface you don't want to scratch. I cleaned up everything with paper towel and a shot of brake clean. For the cleaning threads of the adjuster I would use either a pick or wire brush. Don't forget to wipe the threads of the rack with a brake clean moistened towel. I wouldn't try going hard on cleaning the rack threads as there is a high potential to introduce debris into the rack for what I see as minimal gain. The adjustment torque is not high nor critical so only cleaning the threads of the adjuster is sufficient( I forgot to clean the dimple in the guide before taking the pictures...Oops lol)

5.) Once everything is all cleaned up, you'll want to apply moly grease to the face of the tensioner, the spring pocket on the backside of the tensioner and a little grease to the spring pocket of the adjuster.

5b.) Apply a little bit of thread sealant to the threads of the adjuster. You're sealing the rack from the external elements like water and dust. Nothing under pressure so this doesn't need to be a mount of sealant.
Note: I don't recommend rtv for the threads as I find rtv wouldn't seal well once it's been disturbed after skinning over. Thread sealant cures slower and will afford you more time to setup everything without having to re-clean and re-seal everything while trying to do final setup.

5c.)Once everything is greased up and thread sealed, put your spring in the pocket on the back of the tensioner then you should be ready for reassembly.

6.) Carefully (as you can) drop your tensioner with the spring back into the bore while avoiding grease touching the threads on the way down. Pay attention that the cup of the tensioner should run horizontal to match the curvature of the rack it rides on.

6b.)Next spin down your adjustment the same amount of turns as when you removed it along with the lock nut. Try to snug up the lock nut with your channel locks as best you can then tighten the adjuster and lock nut 1/16 of a turn more. They'll spin and tighten up together. If they don't then back off your adjuster and tighten the lock nut more before the adjustment plug.


Note: From here onwards is the actual adjustment. If you were looking to live life on the wild side you could skip everything up to this point but once you break the cured seal of the adjuster then there is no guarantee your rack is sealed from the elements anymore and it could end in your rack leaking quickly and soon if dust, salt, water, etc gets worked into the wrong place and compromises a seal.

7.) Once you have the adjuster at it's initial setting try doing your half turn (1/4 turn in each direction) sweep again and see how it feels. It should feel similar or possibly a little tighter. If the steering wheel obviously binds then repeat step 6b but a little bit looser on the adjustment.

7b.) If everything feels okay up to now then try to recreate your noise/ go for a road test on the highway. Don't skip the highway driving part even if you started this project for a noise concern. This is where you'll know for sure whether your rack is binding or not. While driving on the highway you'll know if your rack pre-load is too loose by the steering wheel having more play than you started with. You'll know the rack pre-load is too high if you now find the vehicle "wanders" and/or the steering wheel doesn't fully return to centre when you release your grip following a curve.

Note: It's a very good practise to have patience in your doing your final rack setup. You want to sneak up on the sweet spot. If you're too loose, you can snug up the adjuster slightly while also tightening the lock nut which is a win too because you probably struggled to get any amount of reasonable torque on the thin square lock nut. If you over shoot the sweet spot and have to back off the adjuster then you'll have to back it off enough to tighten the lock nut then the adjuster to have any chance of torquing the lock nut. The thread sealer alone will act a bit like locktite and i'm sure it alone would prevent the adjuster from backing off once it cured fully but that's not the primary retention method of the adjuster. The lock nut is! Combined with your steering rack being a critical device in allowing the safe control and operation of your vehicle, I wouldn't risk yours, your family or your community's safety on doing a lock nut delete.

For me that sweet spot of good driving and no noise was about 1/8 turn tighter than I started. I would still start with only 1/16 of a turn tighter as someone who used their truck to deliver skip the dishes in San Francisco will have different wear in their rack than a commuter through North Dakota and, of a rancher in Alberta. Different people also have different vehicle handling preferences so what might drive well to me, may feel too loose for someone else.

Once everything is dialled in and you're content, you can pat yourself on the back. Along with silencing a noise, reducing your steering freeplay or satisfying whatever drove you to perform this adjustment, you've also extended the life of your rack to some degree as tightening the pre-load will reduce the slop in there which will keep the seals riding true(r) in their bores and keep the rack and pinion gears in proper mesh. Again, if your rack is already leaking or gets notably stiffer to steer the further from centre you are then the rack is already worn out and should be replaced.

I performed this task on my 2021 Tacoma when it had around 171'000KM on it and the factory rack. I tow and haul often but the majority of the truck's life is highway driving.

 

Thanks for the through write up!

curious if you have a sound recording of the clunk you’ve been hearing? I’ve got one bad and the only thing I can figure is it’s the rack/ bushings going out.Or it needs this adjustment done.

 

Unfortunately I do not have a sound bite... best way I can describe it is as a distinct metal to metal sound. If you have both wheels off the ground and do the 3 O'clock 9 O'clock shake you'll hear a metallic noise similar to if you were lightly tapping on the skid plate with a hammer.

Also if you haven't, truck take off your skid plate. I did an oil change once and it started making noise after that sounded like flexing a thick pop can. Primarily over uneven road interactions like say turning into a driveway over a curb. I've also seen people on here have issues with the body mount(s) under the rad. I don't know that noise though as i've never experienced it

If you have a helper that can rock the wheel back and forth while you're under it, the noise will be loudest where the steering shaft intersects with the rack and if you push inside of the inner tie rod upwards/towards the front of the truck the noise should change.

If it's the rack bushings you'll see it when the steering wheel is rocked back and forth with both wheels on the ground. Another tell tale of rack bushings is that the steering wheel will find a new position after turns in different directions. Especially aggressive and sudden ones

 

Thanks for the tips! I’ve been chasing this metal clunk noise for about 3 years now but it’s progressively gotten worse. I know it’s gotta be coming from that rack but I’m really not wanting to replace it. I did one on my second gen awhile back and it was not fun.

 

Thats fully understandable. Often steering racks aren't fun to replace. If you do it correctly, there isn't any harm in adjusting the rack. Otherwise you checked all your other steering/suspension components while loaded (either wheels on the ground or jack(stand) under the control arms close to the wheels? Sway bar bushings are often over looked in inspections but those tend to look ovaled out and create a snap/knocking noise when turning over bumps or also over uneven vehicle maneuvers

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/looking-for-help-identifying-a-clunk.828142/

Rack clunk sound clips in this thread. Tightening the rack guide made this quieter from outside the truck, however this was not the noise I was hearing from the cab. Ended up being the hood height adjusters squeaking.