whiskytango
New member
I have a question about this, looking for opinions. My ES kit also has three sleeves for the middle bushing. I tested them out with my bolt and found the middle sized sleeve fit with very little play so I installed that one. Afterward, I noticed the stock bushing/sleeve that I had pulled out laying on the shop floor and, seeing that the stock sleeve appeared to have a larger diameter, at that point realized the stock sleeve was a match to the largest of the three sleeves that came with the new kit, although that largest sleeve was very loose on my stock bolt. This means that the stock bushing/sleeve was also a very loose fit on my stock bolt. Now I am second guessing myself. Was it correct to match the NEW sleeve size to the stock bolt and ignore the size of the OLD sleeve? Obviously the way I have it installed now with the tighter fitting sleeve there would theoretically be less play in the steering rack, which seems to be the main point of this replacement.
I have not driven the truck yet since I am still working on getting the new shocks and springs in, working a little at a time. Everything I had read in my research said to match the sleeve to the bolt, so I didn't even think to compare the ID of the old sleeve to the new ones, just went based off the bolt size. Am I ok to have used a tighter fitting sleeve than what was on there stock?
BTW, my instructions only mentioned two different sleeve sizes but the kit came with three. I didn't have a caliper handy to actually measure the IDs so I just test fit the bolt on all three. It was like Goldilocks, one was too small, one was too big, and the third was just right.
Side note, I must have lucked out because my old bushings came out easily and all the new sleeves slid in easily either by hand or using a simple C-clamp. This is on a 2002. I did the same job on a 1997 several years ago and remember it being much more difficult.
Thanks in advance for any opinions.
