Thanks Man.... Lines are $375? damn....

Yes I did an alignment. If you count the threads on the outer tie rods before you take them off and match with the new ones you'll probably be pretty close to matching the prior alignment.
I didn't notice any steering slack before either, but once everything was replaced I did notice it felt much better. Also on hard braking it did pull to the right a tad even though it went down the road straight. My rig has well over 300K with a lot of original parts, so I'm not opposed to putting some fresh oem stuff in it for hitting the 600K mark.
On the loud noise on your current rack, make sure fluid is fresh. A couple months ago mine was making a really loud noise, I thought it was the pump. I changed the fluid, it went completely quiet after that.

Wow!
Our trucks did pretty much the same thing... I was pretty embarrassed about the fluid level. I thought it was the Pump as well... then it was suggested on here that i check the fluid. I thought it weird because there wasn't and giant spots on the driveway.. I found the level was low...

I added(not changed at this time) fluid and thought this was it. Believe it or not when i applied Brake the wheel did jerk to the right. I didn't think anything of it... thought thought it was out of alignment.

It will be sorted out shortly..
Thanks for the useful information...

All,
Thanks for all of the suggestions.... I had ALL the work done and this is the result.... No fluid in the driveway No strange noises and above all Peace of mind... which is worth it at ANY price. I'm good for the foreseeable future. There were some unexpected issues that added a lot on the bill.. some of the Lines need to be replaced(pressure/return) which were rusted beyond repair. Until the next crisis....
Again thanks for the help in this matter.

Attached Images

       

Something tells me you will be keeping this vehicle for a looong time! That's a chunk of change you laid down. Here's to another 177K!

I really like the truck.... to be fair... i'm not in a position to buy anything else so it was either spend the money or not. I'm hoping to get another 2+ years out of it.. The truck does not owe me dime one.... it's never left me stranded and it's only embarrassed me once when the wiper motor died DURING A RAIN STORM while on a first date(luckily she had a sense of humor) All it asks of me is to take care of it. I think the next thing might be less aggressive rubber..

Well, if you're happy with paying that bill, that's good because most people on this forum would be shitting their pants seeing a bill like that. They charged you $900 to replace a freaking steering rack. That is highway robbery. And of course they incredibly overcharged you for all the parts. They overcharged at least $300 just for the steering rack. $250 labor to do front brakes? Unbelievable. $65 labor to flush the coolant - They opened the drain plug on the bottom of the radiator and refilled it. $135 labor to replace a thermostat - it takes maybe 15 minutes to remove the lower radiator hose and the (3) nuts that hold the water neck onto the water pump. I think the AC service was close to being fair because it does take special tools to do this right.

Wrenching isn't for everyone and I do realize there's the situation where people live in apartments or condos with no garage space to work in. But, when you have the space and time to do your own wrenching, you can save yourself an incredible amount of money. Wrenching isn't always easy and you're bound to run into snags and get frustrated but in the end it's worth it in my opinion. You literally could have saved yourself at least $2000 doing your own work.

No kidding Tim, I'd probably sell my 4R if the steering leak cost me 3k to fix. I'm a big fan of OEM toyota parts but I ended up buying some sonsong power steering lines when my started leaking, no way I was paying 600+ dollars on some lines.

I think something important to realize is that the return on value on these 4Rs are slightly better than average now but its highly unlikely it'll ever be a collectible anytime (maybe 100 years?) so I'd be careful to invest a lot of money into one.

Guys...
I typed up almost a paragraph on why i went the route i did... but for some reason when i went to submit the reply i was signed out...

Basically, I always use OEM parts and the local places were not too much cheaper."I have to bring in my Toyota guy" " I go to the same school as the Toyota guys so why should i charge less?". That kinda thing.

I also dont have the space(being in a townhouse) or time to do repairs... Pop the hood and you'll be written up.. The guy next door was busted for having a flat tire being in the driveway for a week.

I think i made the right decision. This way i have Toyota to yell at if i have leak or Prob #1
I do thank everyone who replied to my OP.

** In addition to the all fun.....
I get a call from the service advisor.... they forgot to add the towing fee onto the bill Since i had the Runner towed 3.5 miles...$110
I've had the truck towed there a few times since 97 NEVER had they ever forgotten before.. I just had to laugh...

LOL I love reading all these posts regarding parts and labor prices. From a DIY perspective totally logical. That said if some of you guys ran an auto repair business on that logic you wouldn't be in business for long. Time has no refund.

Well, I guess it depends what you think your time is worth. If you make big money and have very limited free time, I could see paying high labor rates and overpaying for parts. But, if you don't have money burning a hole in your pocket and you're not short on time, why not turn a wrench and be smart by ordering your parts from an online seller.

The thing is, I doubt any of us commenting on this thread are looking to open a shop. We're commenting from our perspective as DIYers not looking to get bent over at a dealership. I don't give a shit that a dealership or shop has high operation costs. My local dealer's labor rate is $200/hour. I don't make anywhere close to $200 hour so it's a no-brainer for me to the avoid the dealership service department like the plague. Maybe the mechanics and other employees at these dealerships aren't making much money but I can guarantee the folks at the top are probably rolling in doe.

To each his own. People like me enjoy doing their own wrenching more than just for the money savings. The learning, the challenge, the sense of accomplishment, and the knowledge the job was done right are other reasons why I choose do do my own wrenching.

Hey Gang,
Yeah me too... I love hearing all about labor/parts costs and how they Vary across the country.. and even the world... after you do the calculations and exchange rate it's Very interesting...

Lolol triggered. Hence why I said logical from a DIY perspective. If you are running a business you BET time is valuable. Unfortunately Elaine the middle aged 3rd gen owner isn't waiting 8 days for a steering rack to arrive from Camelback Toyota, so she will have to pay $834 that the cheapest dealer in the area will charge. And the book states that a steering rack job is over 4 hours despite guys on a forum being able to change it at the speed of an F1 pit crew. It's all true, but business is business. $2300 is definitely high but I guess to an original owner this isn't much after this many years.

Oh and keep truckin OP.

No Dude, not triggered. LOL back at ya buddy. I'm just stating my opinion that I don't care what a shop's operation costs are. It's no concern to me whether or not they can pay their light bill. My local dealer has a line of cars waiting to get into the service department everyday. At $200/hour, I know this dealership isn't hurting. What I'm here to tell people is if they have an interest at all in auto mechanics and have the time and space to do it, it's a worthwhile pursuit for more reasons than the money savings.

My 98 4runner is heavily modified now. I paid $6500 for it and since then put another 10k easily into it from the maintenance, repairs and modifications I've done to make it more off-road capable. I can't imagine what I would have invested into it if I paid someone to do all the work, probably at least another 10k. I don't know about you, but 10k is a pretty good chunk of change to do something with.

There's things I gladly pay someone else to do for me. I thought about tearing off and installing my own roof recently, but decided the amount of labor it was going to take was going to be more than I wanted to take on. Weeks of physical work out in the hot sun didn't sound so great to me so I parted with a lot of cash instead.

By the way, Camelback Toyota will usually get you your parts in 2-3 days.