Carpokes

Alright, I have a strange one. My rack has play on the driver side. When you turn the wheel from side to side quickly it makes a light clunking noise that you can feel in the car. I had my daughter turn the wheel side to side with me under the car and it is coming from the driver side of the rack. You can grab the tie rod and move the rack in and out only on the driver side. The tie rods are newish, steering coupler is brand new and the rack was rebuilt about 25k miles ago. The rack isn’t leaking at all either. The big question is this, can the bushing with the spring that pushes on the rack be bent out to add more tension. If memory serves me it’s a metal bushing? It sure seems that this is the issue.

I also posted this to the turbo side.

I spent a few hours messing with the car this morning and ended up putting a small shim under the spring. This took care of 95% of the issue and the car feels nearly perfect again. Not sure if this will be a permanent fix but it made a huge difference. I can’t be happier. The spring tension didn’t seem as tight as it should be when it was removed. Not sure if this is due to wear on the bushing or if the spring has lost some of its tension over the years.

Hopefully this will help someone else in the future.