Hoping someone can help diagnose this as it's driving me nuts:

Background:
- Steering is tight when driving on regular roads.
- Very little play in the steering.

Problem:
- As soon as I get offroad, and especially when I put the truck H4 or H4L (it has a multimode transfer case), I start getting a lot of knocking / rattling in the steering column, have to sometimes hold the steering tight wheel with both hands just to keep control.

What I've done so far:
- new outer tie rods
- tilt ball shim mod - helped with steering play, but didn't do much for the rattle
- new steering rack and sway bar bushings - no apparent difference
- upgraded to the new style steering rack guide - not sure if it made any difference

Things to try?
- zip tie in the rag joint mod that's done on 4th/5th gen T4Rs and 2nd/3rd gen Tacos - as far as I can tell, the design of our rag joint is significantly different and I haven't found anyone who has done this mod on a 3rd gen 4runner;
- slip joint tack weld / rolled pin mod - my truck is a 96 and has a different style slip joint, which doesn't seem to need this mod. Plus, there is no play in the slip joint, at least not that I could feel by hand when I took it off

I had an intermediate steering shaft lying around from a donor truck and I examined it for similar sound. It does seem to make a similar clunk (video here), seemingly from the top u-joint hitting the component below. Not sure if it's supposed to be that way, or something is worn out.


Any ideas?

Anyone?

You and I are in a similar boat. The 96 to mid 97 is indeed a different set up. I have been playing with mine for a while but very few others have mentioned it.

As you discovered there is no slip to tack weld. I have a touch of a clack from my intermediate shaft in the firewall as you do. No play to speak of but a clacking on rough surfaces.

My original intermediate shaft was worse, I found a tighter one from a 97. There is a difference between the 2. The 96 has a rubber spacer in the white centring disk which was dried out and shrunken. The 97 had a small spring instead. The 97 is a better design and clacks less. Neither one seemed to have U-Joint play, movement and noise seems to be in the centering disk set up.

I have no idea why the newer 97 to 2002 intermediate shafts don’t do this. They are a different part number and I’ve never had the chance to open one up and compare to mine. I’m thinking only the early ones do this or more people here would be complaining about it. I’m thinking some change in the newer shaft keeps it quiet.

One other person with a 96 brought this up a few years back also.

I’ve been keeping an eye out for a newer style shaft in the dumps (where most of our dead cars go for crushing) but have not found one.

If I ever do maybe I’ll find out what the change was and see if a mix of both styles is possible.

We need someone with a 96 and a 98 plus to do a dissection and compare but that’s a pretty big favour. 97s can be either style depending on build date.

EDIT: When looking for the tighter 97 shaft for mine, I examined 3 early style runners. All of them exhibited the clack we are discussing, the 97 I chose was the quietest and solidest one I could find.

I had this same issue on my 96 too. I had some other miscellaneous alignment problems (which may or may not have been from sliding the front wheel into a curb doing a j turn on ice) which resulted in me replacing a lot under the truck: inner & outer TRE's, steering rack (w/ poly bushings), LCA bushings.

This, combined with SPC upper control arms, radflo shocks, new ball joints, 1st gen taco sway bar mod (all toyota OEM parts) was a great improvement from an under-maintained soccer mom car with 250k miles.
BUT, the steering rattling on rough roads still drove me nuts. So I pulled out the steering column and threw a couple tack welds on the slip joint as some suggested on here. There was no apparent loose-ness but I decided to try it out anyway. That didn't help.

I ended up taking out the steering shaft on the engine side of the firewall. I noticed there's a shock absorbing coupling above the rag joint that is a rubber piece sandwiched between two metal plates. One of the plates has slots, and another has pegs that loosely fit in the slots, allowing the rubber piece to flex about 1/8" rotationally. Sure enough, that was what was making rattling noise. It was functioning as intended. So I put it back. I've done a little brainstorming as far as replacing the rubber with a 3d printed piece of polycarb or something to prevent it from moving so much, but it hasn't been a priority since it functions fine.

Sorry I don't have pictures, it was a while ago. I've never seen one of the different style ones.

My 2 cents, hope it helps. Let me know if you have questions.

Thanks for the reply!

So you never got rid of the clunk?

The rubber flex piece you are talking about is inside this joint, right (between the plates)?

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a 1998

No it isn’t. In there is a round circular plastic disk with a steel lined hole in it. Each end of the 2 shafts has a ball that goes into the hole from opposite sides. There is a rubber or spring in there depending on the vintage. It functions very much like the double cardan joint in the driveshaft.

Open it up and take a look, just pay attention to order of things in there.

He’s talking about the joint by the steering rack.

I have this same exact issue with my 2000 and also had it with my prior 2002. Would love to find a solution as it drives me nuts!

Please keep the info coming.

OK, so I did some more digging and exploring

The part in issue is called a yoke subassembly, for which I found at least 3 interchangeable part numbers:
45290-35030 - all 3rd gen 4runners
45290-35031 - all 3rd gen 4runners
45290-35040 - all 3rd gen 4runners, a 1st gen tacos

Toyota lists it as a single, non-use serviceable part.

Since I had a spare shaft, I opened the yoke and I think I may have an idea of what's wrong.

The OD of the circular plastic disk is 2-4mm less than the ID of the metal carrier. Not sure why it's designed this way, but perhaps the rag joint made up of a steel lined hole on each side of the desk receiving a steel ball needs some degree of free motion.

Keeping it against one of the carrier surfaces is wave washer (OD = 60 mm, ID is 57 mm, free height = 3 mm). Without the wave waher, the whole assembly rattles like a sack of nuts. With the washer in place, the whole assembly is noticeably tighter, although it still rattles quite a bit in this (video ) since I cleaned out all of the (24 yo) grease.

So, I wonder if the following may do the trick:
- a new, preferably beefier wave washer?
- an o-ring around the plastic disk? - don't think it would survive long
- heavier grease?

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Your disk is like my original 96 one. See that dried up piece of rubber in the hole? That’s to apply pressure to the ball ends and prevent rattles but it’s squished and dried like a ... something anyway. The assembly I pulled from a 97 had this rubber piece replaced with a stiff spring, that’s why I mentioned the differences earlier but we were talking apples and oranges then. Now we are on the same page.

The later assembly with the spring has much more preload and is a whole lot less clunky, I’d say 75% reduction but not completely gone.

I’m curious to see what’s in a later model part.

Any pictures of the spring?

After all, what's stopping me from adding a spring in there?

This is an aftermarket centering disk I tried last winter. It didn’t last. The metal sleeve in the plastic is soft and wore causing still steering.

The rubber is my original 96 part. The spring is the one that came with the cheap febest disk. The oem 97 spring is currently in my truck. It’s a nicer spring with ends that are flat and smooth rather than sharp and pointy as this one is.

Of all the things I’ve tried, the mid 97 assembly I have in now works best, but it’s still not perfect.

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Just found your post - Steering Shaft Play - Beyond the Tack Weld - reading it now!

I am going to try 2 things:
- find a 97+ yoke from an auto-wrecker and depending on its state, combine parts with mine - key is getting a spring
- double up on the wave washer