Steering wheel issue

[silverfjc]

2nd post in the forum. Bought my GX470 a couple of months ago. Rig had 5100's in the front with stock springs on 4th clip, OME 889 rear springs with 5100's when i brought it home. The UCA's that were in the rig had tored up boots, so i had them replaced with some KSP UCA's i found online.
Have been offroading a few times since i bought it and i've been chasing down and issue with my steering wheel getting crooked while doing nothing really crazy on the trails. There is also a clunk that happens when we put the steering at full lock. This noise was present when i bought it and i thought it was coming from old sway bar links that had tored up boots.

Then i thought my lower control arms cam bolts were the issue so did i replace them with Poly Taco tabs. Loving them btw but I've paid for 3 aligment jobs since i bought the rig and want to find out what's going on.

Today i learned I can duplicate the issue on demand, for example, I'll come to a full stop in front of my house, then i'll turn the steering full lock to the passenger side, then move out the rig keeping the steering locked towards that side say 2ft., Then i'll just re-center the steering and drive forward, my steering wheel will be crooked to the right by a small amount.
Now i'll come to full stop again, turn the steering full lock towards the driver side move the rig again with the steering fully locked another 2ft or so, then recenter the steering, now the sucker will be straight or super tiny bit crooked to the left, way less than when this happens towards the other side. So when i want to recenter the steering all i have to do is turn driver full lock, move with the steering wheel full lock couple of ft and voila, steering wheel is centered.

WTF ?

As long as i don't turn full lock the steering wheel seems to hold where it should be, the moment i tun full lock and move because say we're doing a u-turn in front of house, or parking on a tight spot where you need to turn full lock to fit, the stupid thing gets crooked.

Trying to see if the steering rack bushings are messed up, I asked my son to turn the steering full lock in our driveway one way, then i asked him to wiggle the steering wheel at full lock that way, and i don't see movement on the steering rack bushings. Same doing the same thing towards the other side.
But if he wiggles the steering left and right and viceversa with the steering wheel center for example, i can feel both tierods clunking. is the clunking normal or maybe the inner/outer TR's are done ? last week we popped the tierods from their mounts and i started yanking on the inners in and out and they were not moving one bit, no clunking. they feel normal tight when i grabbed each tierod and moved each one up upwards by hand then let them go from my hand, they will slowly swing down so they don't feel loose at all.

so all tings i've done, replaced all sway bar links as they had tored up boots.
Like i said had the upper control arms replaced because the old one had boots that were tored up, so added those brad new KSP ones last month.
Now i did the poly Taco tabs myself.
The steering rack is fresh, (guy who sold me the rig said there were fresh) it appear new to the naked eyes, not sure if the bushings are that new though no oil leaking from the rack, i checked today if the bolts that hold the bushings in place were lose but they seem fine to me, the bushings don't appear to move when wiggling the steering wheel drytest or with the engine running.
Checked the lowers BJ's jacking up the right with front wheels in the air and the LCA BJ's are tight
i've checked the wheels in the air for 3-6 oclock movement and i don't think i feel chit

I'm at lost thinking what else can i check or what the problem might be. Any other ideas will be highly appreciated. This is my first GX470 and i have no idea how this side of the world works. I do the steering on my Jeep JKU and i think it's way simpler than the Lexus by far. Damn

Thanks a lot for checking my thread.

 

[Jstawgn]

Have someone in the car moving the steering wheel and check the movement of the steering rack. Probably bad steering rack bushing or loose mount bolt. Is the rack original? It is pretty common for this bushing to go bad after all this years.

 

[aztoytec]

I would also inspect the steering shaft that goes to the rack. Make sure it’s all the way installed and tight. It is splined with a bolt that clamps it down. There is one by the rack and an upper one. Should only go one way but I’ve seen them not installed all the way and loose.

 

[Rednexus]

I had that problem and it was the steering rack bushings. I just replaced the entire rack with a reman unit and it's been fine since.

 

[silverfjc]

Wanted to update the thread. the steering rack was apparently replaced before i bought the rig. Not sure when exactly but the ad said it had a fresh steering rack.

I took the Lexus to a small family owned local shop out of desperation already, and had the guy that do suspensions at the shop drive my rig after explaining the whole ordeal, and we were able to replicate the steering wheel shifting issue in the test drive. He said it could be the rack bushings but he wanted to try re-torquing those bolts first so we went back to the shop and he did so. After that we took her for another test drive and now the stering wheel wasn't shifting anymore.

Then we went back to the shop and he checked the front wheels for movement at 3-9 oclock and he showed me clearly the passenger front was moving, Don't know why i didn't see that when i did it myself, in this case the wheels were dropped in the air all the way down which i don't think will matter compared to how i did it, but in any case he mentioned the passenger side inner tierod was more likely toasted. I had my 555 TR's with me just in case so i asked the dude to replace both sides TR with new 555 inner/outers, and then do the alignment.

Now she's driving normal again with no steering shifting and no more clunk when turning at full lock.

 

[steveLX450]

I just replaced my rack with a new one from Lexus. If you read the shop manual it states do not loosen the rack bolts by turning the nuts on the bottom, loosen the bolts from the top. The nuts have 4 raised bumps that lock Into the chassis, if you already spun the nuts then replace them with new nuts. If the nuts are not properly located in the detents when the bolts are tightened then the rack bushing bolts will shift back and forth causing your problem.
Also I have read where some guys are swapping in the GX460 rack. I understand that the rack mounting bolts are not spaced the same as the 470 rack and requires prying the rack to one side or using a tapered bushing to get the last bolt in. This is a terrible idea as you are already squishing the bushings to one side, this will definitely cause premature bushing failure and not allow the bushings to do their job. I don’t think this is an upgrade by any means. Also drilling the holes out to the larger mounting bolts size is pretty sketchy from what I’ve read, not to mention you permanently modified your frame now to only use the larger bolts.

 

[silverfjc]

I just replaced my rack with a new one from Lexus. If you read the shop manual it states do not loosen the rack bolts by turning the nuts on the bottom, loosen the bolts from the top. The nuts have 4 raised bumps that lock Into the chassis, if you already spun the nuts then replace them with new nuts. If the nuts are not properly located in the detents when the bolts are tightened then the rack bushing bolts will shift back and forth causing your problem.
Also I have read where some guys are swapping in the GX460 rack. I understand that the rack mounting bolts are not spaced the same as the 470 rack and requires prying the rack to one side or using a tapered bushing to get the last bolt in. This is a terrible idea as you are already squishing the bushings to one side, this will definitely cause premature bushing failure and not allow the bushings to do their job. I don’t think this is an upgrade by any means. Also drilling the holes out to the larger mounting bolts size is pretty sketchy from what I’ve read, not to mention you permanently modified your frame now to only use the larger bolts.

I had the steering rack replaced last week, I wasn't trusting the rack that was in there before, pretty expensive repair for what it is, $1600 OTD