Polyurethane steering rack bushing question.

[texadelphia]

New rack showed up today. I was contemplating if I wanted to leave the rubber bushings in or give the Whiteline set another chance. I was reviewing the tech data their guy sent me and noticed something odd. The OD on the sleeve is listed as 19mm and the ID on the washer is listed as 19.5mm. So the sleeve fits through the hole of the washers. I thought, this can't be right, so I went out and checked the new kit they sent me and sure enough I was able to put the washer around the sleeve. So what does this mean? It means that as you tighten down the bolt, the ends of the sleeve are bearing against the nut and the subframe where the bolt comes through. Unless the tolerance is very tight on that bolt hole in the subframe it seems like it wouldn't be too hard for that sleeve to deform the bolt hole in the subframe and maybe even push into the subframe, especially under 140 ft-lb of torque. This strikes me as a really poor design. The OEM bushing has that integrated washer that bears on the subframe which makes a lot more sense. If that sleeve pushes into the subframe, that's going to smash the bushing material and make it mushroom out around the washer which is exactly what I saw when I installed it. It will be really interesting to see what my subframe looks like when I take it apart this weekend. I have a feeling I'm going to be extracting that sleeve from my subframe.

 

[texadelphia]

Also, can anyone get me the.dimensions in that OEM washer? The dealership had to order one for me and it might not get here by Saturday so I might be sourcing one at the hardware store.

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[muellernautique]

You’ve got me concerned I’m going to go out and install my energy suspension kit this weekend and have a similar issue. Interested to see what it looks like when you remove your rack.


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[texadelphia]

You’ve got me concerned I’m going to go out and install my energy suspension kit this weekend and have a similar issue. Interested to see what it looks like when you remove your rack.


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From what I've seen of the Energy installs it looks like the sleeve is thicker and doesn't fit through the washer hole.

 

[muellernautique]

From what I've seen of the Energy installs it looks like the sleeve is thicker and doesn't fit through the washer hole.

Thank you for your quick response. Nice to know this ahead of time before I’ve got the rack dangling and my car on jacks. So that photo looks like the included washer on the back, and the OEM washer on the front, and the OEM one is too small?

I’ve got a manual antenna mount already waiting for me to pickup at the dealer tomorrow so I’ll order one or two of those washers with the other items I need in store. I’d probably just hit it with my dremel and open the hole up a bit. My tie rods are good so I’m not ready to go for a new Toyota rack yet. I’d rather have the Toyota bushings too.

Can you give me the part number for the washer as well?


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[texadelphia]

Thank you for your quick response. Nice to know this ahead of time before I’ve got the rack dangling and my car on jacks. So that photo looks like the included washer on the back, and the OEM washer on the front, and the OEM one is too small?

I’ve got a manual antenna mount already waiting for me to pickup at the dealer tomorrow so I’ll order one or two of those washers with the other items I need in store. I’d probably just hit it with my dremel and open the hole up a bit. My tie rods are good so I’m not ready to go for a new Toyota rack yet. I’d rather have the Toyota bushings too.

Can you give me the part number for the washer as well?


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The OEM washer should be good. The Whiteline kit came with 2 washers and I used both of them and I probably should have reused the OEM one at least although it wouldn't have fixed anything on the subframe side. I don't have a part number for the OEM washer, I just had the parts guy look it up and order one for me. He did say it's called a spacer in the parts catalog and not a washer.

If I had the Energy kit I'd probably just use their included washer between the subframe and bushing and the OEM washer between the nut and the bushing per their instructions.

 

[texadelphia]

For anyone that cares, I believe this is how the configurations differ. Take note of how the sleeve/washer/subframe interface differs between the 3. For Energy and OEM I believe the washer is bearing on the subframe while in the Whiteline setup the sleeve is bearing directly on the subframe. I believe that the sleeve bearing directly on the subframe could be a bad situation but that's just my opinion at this point.

 

[texadelphia]

Well I got the rack replaced today and got a closer look at that driver side bushing. The washer between the rack and the bushing was deformed. Once I got it apart I saw that the sleeve was mushroomed at both ends. So either the supplied hardware was garbage or my torque wrench is garbage and I torqued it down way more than I thought I did. I'm guessing my $20 Harbor Freight torque wrench may have been the issue. I used the shop's Mac torque wrench when I installed the new rack and it seemed to take less force to get to the proper torque.

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[T4topher]

Well I got the rack replaced today and got a closer look at that driver side bushing. The washer between the rack and the bushing was deformed. Once I got it apart I saw that the sleeve was mushroomed at both ends. So either the supplied hardware was garbage or my torque wrench is garbage and I torqued it down way more than I thought I did. I'm guessing my $20 Harbor Freight torque wrench may have been the issue. I used the shop's Mac torque wrench when I installed the new rack and it seemed to take less force to get to the proper torque.

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Dang man you musta threw some serious torque on that thing lol.. Glad you got it figured out. My harbor freight torque wrenches were pretty garbage too, now I have Tekton.

 

[texadelphia]

The way I figure, I weigh 150 lbs and I was pulling down on the torque wrench so if it's about a foot long the most I could put into it would be 150 ft-lbs before I was doing pull ups on the torque wrench. Lol. But it might be a little longer than a foot. Still seems like there should be a bigger factor of safety on the hardware.

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[TX4Running]

The way I figure, I weigh 150 lbs and I was pulling down on the torque wrench so if it's about a foot long the most I could put into it would be 150 ft-lbs before I was doing pull ups on the torque wrench. Lol. But it might be a little longer than a foot. Still seems like there should be a bigger factor of safety on the hardware.

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Just so nobody makes the mistake of assuming their mass (weight) is small enough to hang on a torque wrench - the lbs in ft-lbs is pounds - force. You need to multiply your mass (150 lbs) by the acceleration of gravity to get the true force. I believe gravity is ~32 ft / sec^2. Thus, a 1 ft long torque wrench with you hanging off it would be 4,800 ft-lbs of torque.

 

[texadelphia]

Just so nobody makes the mistake of assuming their mass (weight) is small enough to hang on a torque wrench - the lbs in ft-lbs is pounds - force. You need to multiply your mass (150 lbs) by the acceleration of gravity to get the true force. I believe gravity is ~32 ft / sec^2. Thus, a 1 ft long torque wrench with you hanging off it would be 4,800 ft-lbs of torque.

That's actually not at all correct. Acceleration due to gravity is already accounted for in scale readings so weight measurements are are actually in lbs-force. Read this.

mechanical engineering - Pound-force (lbf) vs Pound-mass (lbm) - Engineering Stack Exchange

 

[TX4Running]

That's actually not at all correct. Acceleration due to gravity is already accounted for in scale readings so weight measurements are are actually in lbs-force. Read this.

mechanical engineering - Pound-force (lbf) vs Pound-mass (lbm) - Engineering Stack Exchange

10-4. I stand corrected. It's been over 20 years since I took mechanics in college.

 

[texadelphia]

10-4. I stand corrected. It's been over 20 years since I took mechanics in college.

Same. It's another confusing quirk of the English unit system. I do a lot of FEA work dealing with acceleration and body forces so this stuff hasn't gone stale with me yet.

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