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Rack & Pinion Help

2000 XLT, 4WD, 47k miles

I noticed that occasionally I'll hear a light knock from the front end, and can be felt thru the steering wheel. I've felt it occasionally over bumps, and especially if I make left/right motions with the wheel. When I got home I had my wife wiggle the wheel back and forth (engine off, key on, all wheels on the ground) while I crawled beneath to find the noise. It sounds (and feels) like it's coming from the rack & pinion assembly, like there is play between the rack and the pinion gear. And I mean it's RIGHT there where the input shaft meets the rack.

Working on a friend's mini-van years back, I was able to take excess play out of the R&P by tightening on a large hex-type bolt on the back of the rack. Would this be something that can be done on the 2000 model?

What else could this problem be cause of?

I raised the tires up and did the side to side test for the tie rod end test and I don't feel any tie rod play.

Any ideas?

Reply to
IanCT
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I had a '94 Mustang that developed similar knocks and looseness feelings, it turned out the rack was not properly torqued during assembly and had almost dropped completely. You may want to make sure the rack itself is torqued to spec...

Good luck,

Steven

IanCT wrote:

Reply to
Steven Hilgendorf

I had a very similar steering knock in my 96' Explorer Sport. A Ford mechanic friend of mine suggested that I replace the coupler between the rack and pinion input and the steering column. He said there were some TSB's published relating to this knocking sound. The replacement part seemed to be a heavier duty design. When I grabbed the original coupler before I removed it, it seemed to wiggle excessively and make some metal to metal contact. My knock went away after I replaced it.

Reply to
gordo

Reply to
Fred

Like I said, last night I narrowed the sound down to around where the input shaft goes into the rack, which lead me to believe it was the inner tie rod or the rack/pinion itself.

Took it to the dealer today (whom I trust pretty well) and diagnosed it as an inner tie-rod issue.

I take it in on Monday.

Thanks for the replies!

Reply to
IanCT

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