Steering Shaft Rotations- How to Center (1 Viewer)

[Indiana80]

I recently had my 2005 LX470 with VGRS into a dealer for some work that included exhaust manifold replacement and some suspension work that required an alignment. Seems like upper and lower steering shafts were separated to access one of the exhaust manifold nuts. After the alignment, my steering wheel rotations aren’t equal in both directions to lock. I know dealer struggled to get steering wheel aligned. I was able to get it centered using FSM procedure. However, with wheels straight and steering wheel centered, I now have just over 1.5 left steering wheel turns to hit lock and just over 1 right steering wheel turn to hit lock. I plan to take truck back to dealer to fix some things. Anyone know the procedure to get steering shaft rotations back to equal, from center, in either direction? Maybe the truck was like this prior to alignment, but I noticed in my driving that it seemed different in tight parking situations. Also, I had just replaced clockspring, fixed VSC and VGRS lights, and had nice quiet and centered steering before dealer’s work. Now clockspring is crunchy when turning and my horn only intermittently works and sometimes sounds like it’s sick. All clockspring related- I’m sure. Horn worked fine before the work, as well. Dealer is a Toyota dealer and running without a master tech- mostly or all young people and not, apparently, at all familiar with VGRS. I don’t think they want to see the truck again.

 

[Indiana80]

I recently had my 2005 LX470 with VGRS into a dealer for some work that included exhaust manifold replacement and some suspension work that required an alignment. Seems like upper and lower steering shafts were separated to access one of the exhaust manifold nuts. After the alignment, my steering wheel rotations aren’t equal in both directions to lock. I know dealer struggled to get steering wheel aligned. I was able to get it centered using FSM procedure. However, with wheels straight and steering wheel centered, I now have just over 1.5 left steering wheel turns to hit lock and just over 1 right steering wheel turn to hit lock. I plan to take truck back to dealer to fix some things. Anyone know the procedure to get steering shaft rotations back to equal, from center, in either direction? Maybe the truck was like this prior to alignment, but I noticed in my driving that it seemed different in tight parking situations. Also, I had just replaced clockspring, fixed VSC and VGRS lights, and had nice quiet and centered steering before dealer’s work. Now clockspring is crunchy when turning and my horn only intermittently works and sometimes sounds like it’s sick. All clockspring related- I’m sure. Horn worked fine before the work, as well. Dealer is a Toyota dealer and running without a master tech- mostly or all young people and not, apparently, at all familiar with VGRS. I don’t think they want to see the truck again.

Bumping this back up. Was finally able to crawl under the truck tonight and pull front skid plate. Noticed driver side tie rod has quite a few threads exposed. Passenger side tie rod is threaded all the way in to outer TRE. I’m not an alignment tech, but shouldn’t they be threaded fairly equally to get equal steering wheel turns to hit lock in either direction? My steering wheel no longer gets full rotations right to get me into a parking spot I sometimes park in. I think the tech was trying his damndest to get steering wheel centered without any understanding of how VGRS works to center steering wheel. He never did get steering wheel straight, and now steering wheel rotations to lock are unequal. Does my hypothesis make sense?