99 Silverado steering rack and pinion bolt holes elongated (800k miles...)

calereeves · January 18, 2022

My 99 has had a lot of slop in the steering for a long time. The truck has 801,000 miles on it, as I always chalked it up to the ball joints and tie rod ends wearing out over time...and just done some kentucky windage adjustment while driving and kept on sending it. I finally crawled under it while I had somebody turn the steering wheel back and forth through the dead zone ( 3-5 degrees of steering wheel turn) and saw that the rack and pinion body was moving back and forth across the dead zone. I ordered some new bushing for it and installed them over the weekend. When I pulled the bolts out, I noticed there was a lot of slop in the bolt holes, but didn't think too much of it until I pulled the bolt out a little further, and then saw how elongated the holes were through the cross member. I had some leftover keystock and woodruff keys that I used to shim the bolts temporarily to take up as much of the play as I could, but I'm really at a loss as to how to fix this.

The only real fix I can come up with is over drilling the holes, and having a bushing made to fit, but in order to drill those deep holes accurately, I'll have to get a portamag drill press in there, and that's going to take some sort of custom plate bolted or welded someplace else. I also considered welding on a plate to each side with a new hole, but unless I can find some hardened steel, I think the plates would wear out pretty fast.

Any ideas are appreciated!

Edited January 18, 2022 by calereeves
typo

Supreme Pizza · January 18, 2022

You might be able to lock the parts in place using some sort of special washer. Another option might be to eliminate the extra space up with metal rods, and then fill up the whole area around the rods with medium strength Threadlocker.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Supreme Pizza

calereeves · January 18, 2022

The factory washers are heavily ridged like what you posted, and I jammed some keystock in the holes thusfar, but it's a temporary solution at best. I'm sure the hardened keystock is going to just wear into the surrounding metal even faster than the bolt did.

JimCost2014 · January 18, 2022

1 hour ago, calereeves said:

The factory washers are heavily ridged like what you posted, and I jammed some keystock in the holes thusfar, but it's a temporary solution at best. I'm sure the hardened keystock is going to just wear into the surrounding metal even faster than the bolt did.

Welcome to the site.

That rack is problematic for that exact reason. It is a very soft metal, and when the holes start getting bigger, all you can do is replace the rack assembly. Had to replace them on my 1999, and 2004.

If you find a used one, you will know where to look for problems.

Edited January 18, 2022 by JimCost2014

Supreme Pizza · January 19, 2022

This might seem a bit extreme, but what about tack welding the bolts in place. You could easily remove the tack welds as needed with a grinder, or hammer and chisel.