Stiff Steering (Fixed)

[Majkmichael]

For the past year I've been dealing with annoyingly stiff steering. It progressively got worse as time went by. It felt like a sudden extreme tightness in my steering at certain points in a turn and overall stiffer than it should be. I replaced the rack, pump, lower ball joints, and had it aligned to no avail. The fix that did it was opening up the plastic cover behind my pedals and spraying the bearings on the steering u joint with WD40. Over time the grease dried up and became like a glue that was sticking the body of the u joint to the bearing race.

 

[pluton]

Good to hear of a problem and the simple solution, but if it were me, I'd attempt to re-lube them with an actual lubricant since WD-40 is not an oil or grease.

 

[OpenYota]

Good to hear of a problem and the simple solution, but if it were me, I'd attempt to re-lube them with an actual lubricant since WD-40 is not an oil or grease.

Do you think silicone lubricant would suffice?

 

[Majkmichael]

Good to hear of a problem and the simple solution, but if it were me, I'd attempt to re-lube them with an actual lubricant since WD-40 is not an oil or grease.

Good point, there's still grease in the u joint though. Just less of the dried up crap that the wd 40 took care of

 

[Majkmichael]

Do you think silicone lubricant would suffice?

Yes only after the WD40 though. Only problem is that its a ***** to get grease in those bearings easily

 

[repo]

Do you think silicone lubricant would suffice?

I use white lithium grease for stuff like that, it lasts a long time.

 

[ads2539]

It sounds like you need a new steering shaft. I don’t know the exact 3rd gen part but, at least with the 4th gen, if spraying/lubing the u-joint fixes the stiff steering (temporarily), you need to replace the intermediate (?) steering shaft.

If you’re still on your original 3rd gen steering shaft, it’s time for a new one. You got many years out of the original. I bought mine on eBay for a fraction of the OEM price. I couldn’t get mine out myself (no air hammer), so I got a mechanic to do it in about an hour.

 

[Malcolm99]

The 4th gen and 3rd gen 4runners are completely different, 3rd gens don't have 99% failure rate of the steering shaft ujoint, being stored safely out of the elements, unlike the 4th gen 4R's and 2nd gen tacomas which have the ujoint completely exposed in the wheel well basically, so 3rd gen 4R's and 1st Gen Taco's don't typically need to change a steering shaft ever.

Note: I wouldn't use a ebay part for any steering components on any vehicle.