A couple of years ago I cut delrin (acetal) bushings to replace the ridiculously squishy bushings on the rack and struts on my '98.
The two bushings on the driver's side of the steering rack flex badly making the steering flail around when hitting bumps, limits steering radius, and ruins the precision the rack is capable of. I intended to put a sleeve inside the rack to support the rack gear as well, as it can travel up and down on the pinion gear, but never got to it. I have put about 60,000 on the rack bushings (including some hang time here and there) with NO wear whatsoever.
The first set of bushings I made for the struts wore out in about 30,000 miles, and I made another set with o-rings to prevent contamination getting in between the steel sleeve and the delrin. This has made them wear none since after another 30k. I used chromemoly steel sleeves similar to the stockers in the vulcanized bushing, and drilled/tapped the strut's bushing mount for a zerk (grease) fitting (1/4"x28tpi).
If you look at your stock struts, you will notice that the lower bushing bolt is off center, and sitting high due to the bushing squishing. IMO it is ENTIRELY an inadequate design, and the slop in the bushing allows for chatter across bumps that is not absorbed by the hydraulic action of the shock absorber. You can have someone turn the steering wheel and see the rack bushings flexing alarmingly without the steering turning. It is a dramatic demonstration for most folks I have showed. The wheel turns, the rack slides back and forth, and the tires don't turn.
The rack bushings made a fantastic difference in handling, especially on potholes at high speed, and washboard. It also turned noticeably tighter.
The strut bushings made for better handling, but nowhere near what I expected. Still worth doing, but only maybe 1/3 the difference in handling the rack bushings made.
If anyone is interested, I can post the dimensions, instructions for making the strut bushings, but I lost the diagram for the rack bushings since it's been YEARS since I put them in. But the process is similar.
But these work pretty awesome. Might save your life. Any interest?
