Name that noise

My Explorer is doing that very thing, horrible creak about any time the suspension flexes. Big-O says loose control arms and shot ball joints. I haven't had it apart yet to verify.
 
Well, I took the 4runner in this morning before work to have it checked out.

According to the tech the outer tie rod end needs to be replaced and that the steering gear/rack n pinion has excessive play.

The tie rod I believe since it looks like crap compared to the other side but the whole steering gear/rack n pinion I have a hard time with believing :rolleyes:. How do you even tell if that is bad?? I'm not going to do anything about that until I get some one elses opinion.

Nothing was said about the ball joint.



Went ahead and bought a new outer tie rod. Looking at the repair manual it says that you need a separtor to feel the joint loose. Do you really need or can you just tap it lightly with a hammer unit it comes loose? Do you need an alignment after replacing it?
 
I was told once on a tacoma that I needed new tie rods. I went home and took a look at it while someone was turning it and noticed the rubber mounts that held the rack allowed play. I bought some polyurethane mounts and it snugged everything up.

The easiest way to tell if you need a tie rod is to have the tire off the ground and wiggle the tire back and forth. If its not tight or clicks then its bad.
Tie rods check by grabbing tire at 3 and 9 o'clock. Balljoints check at 12 and 6 o'clock.
The easiest was to seperate the tie rod is to smack the arm that the joint goes in. After taking the nut off, wack the steering knuckle where it goes through until it pops loose. You can probably get pretty close to having it setup after its installed but an alignment is the proper way to get it lined up.
 
Yep. That's how i get them off. I have a pickle fork and used it once. The hammer it out method works a lot better.
 
Steering racks are absolutely a known failure point on your generation 4Runner/Tacoma... that is not to say its bad, just to say that it is 100% plausible.
 
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