Hi Chris, Mine's the same, and I have plenty of rough roads in Tanzania to test it on! I have come to the conclusion it's the adjustment on the steering rack - ie how tightly the rack is adjusted up to the pinion. When I replaced the oil seals in my steering rack I adjusted the rack very lightly (as specified in the manual, basically just losing the play between the meshing teeth) and the noise on rough roads disappeared for a short while. Now it's coming back, so I think I need to tighten it up again. The adjustment is accessible on the rack from underneath the car. If too much play is allowed I think it causes the oil seals, especially the nearside one which is furthest from it, to fail. Have you checked if your oil seal is leaking? It can leak into the boot and you don't know until you take the boot off.
Peter Nitschke Junk Filterer South Australia UZZ30 UZZ31
Friday, December 05, 2008 - 08:08 pm, by: Murray Lund(Murray)
I had similar issues which I assumed was coming from the steering column. I replaced the rack rubber mounts but the problem was still there. Turned out it was the front left shock - the airbag was fine but the shock itself had worn out. A new strut fixed the problem.
I came across my Soarer by chance, Chris. Most vehicles round here are 4x4s as you'd imagine - I also have 2 landcruisers, an HZJ80 and an HDJ100, but the Soarer is great when I have to go to meetings in Arusha, a town 75 miles from here. The road from here to there is good, and I was looking for a smaller car for commuting when an acquaintance offered me the Soarer. He'd just imported a load of vehicles from auction in Japan and I think they threw in the Soarer as a discount bonus! It was in great nick, still is, but he couldn't sell it because of the engine size and the fact that nobody would know how to service it. I bought it because I loved the look of it and wasn't frightened at the prospect of fixing it. So far I've replaced the air struts (had a Japanese friend importing stuff from Japan and he slipped them in for me!), changed the timing belt, water pump, radiator (it blew up on me!), overhauled the power steering pump and the steering rack, and the alternator, and my next job is to fix the dash as the bottom line hardly ever comes on even in the warm weather here. But it's just such a lovely engine!
I imported them brand new! My Japanese friend ordered them direct from Toyota and they cost about US$200 each from memory. I contributed about $200 towards freight and clearing so the set cost about $1000. Not cheap, but had I bought them from the local Toyota dealer (who would have had to import them specially) he was quoting over twice as much. I think that if I'd not had my Japanese friend to help, I'd probably have bought Supra struts from the UK and just scrapped the air suspension system. I was having problems with the front struts in particular, before I changed them. I work in tourism here in Tanzania. We have a family hotel on the slopes of Kilimanjaro and we send people up the mountain - just sent 10 this morning.
Monday, December 08, 2008 - 08:48 pm, by: Ben Kelly(Ace)
Seamus...i can hardly imagine you in your safari suit getting from town to town among the elephants and wilderbeast in a soarer! the mind boggles. you sure you arent having a lend? if you're fair dinkum would love to hear some of your soarer safari stories.
Well, Ben, when I was a kid you still saw a lot of antelope and giraffe etc on the open roads around here. My father used to go hunting at weekends just 10 miles from here! But with the xplosion in the human population the wildlife has retreated more and more. The roads around here are now dangerous because of drunks (both on foot and behind the wheel), stray dogs, cattle and goats, and Masai donkeys - even the big lorries slow down for the donkeys, they'll completely destroy a car, even more so than a cow. But the upside of the population growth has been an improvement in roads and in this area they are smooth, fairly wide, and with lots of open straights so it's easy to hit the limiter on the soarer without trying. Not many radar traps either! But if it's elephants you want, Ngorongoro Crater is 6 hours from here, and the Serengeti is another 3 or 4 beyond there. Nice place to live!
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