74WELD Steering Rack Clunking - Check Yours!

[TruckCamper]

I'm curious if this is an issue for all of the 74WELD Steering Rack (Stage 3) complete housings. We shipped our Raptor stock rack to 74Weld for the housing swap. After a couple months noticed the steering clunking going into / out of the driveway. And investigated further...

Here's a video of the test procedure:


I emailed Quinn @ 74weld in Jan 2025. He called and explained the steering rack has a solid pinion spacer vs the spring tensioner in the stock housing. This essentially allows the pinion to not be tightly contacting the rack bar. He says strength is actually enhanced but the clunk is due to the gap not being tight enough. He told me they are working on a solution and would call me back in 6 months. No update yet.

I'll update this thread if / when there is a solution or the 74weld design is updated.

Who else has this clunk?

Sponsored

 

[SierraBronco]

We have the 74w clunk. Noticed it pretty early on but assumed it was heims, even when they were new. Pulled them all apart and-heims are still tight. Swapped from the 2022 to a brand new 2024 and the clunk transferred over with it. 2022 clunk went away when the OEM rack went into it. We have another 2024 Wildtrak with the factory rack-no clunk.

 

[ScLeCo]

No clunk here, yet. I'm sure now that I said that I'll hear it tomorrow.

 

[Mdsuits]

Yup. With the truck off and moving the wheel it sounds just like the video.

 

[BigMeatsBronco]

I'm with you 100% mine has had the SAME problem for a year...so pissed off. because Quinn knows this is a big issue I even had him send me a new cap so I could spend $250 trying to fix the issue with a roller bearing installed in the cap...still has the issue. Annoying as fuck. Probably more annoying than replacing a broken 2.0 rack out on a trail. I've sent him videos of the same thing. I suggest we band together and demand a prompt fix immediately.

wondering if @Bmadda also has this issue?

 

[SierraBronco]

Also have this problem. I even tried to fix it myself after Quin said it was "normal"... Very disappointed in the product overall and the response from 74weld.

So it’s not just me. And @ScLeCo. And several other people that have DM’d the instagram account to express how awful their experience has been but don’t want to say anything publicly as they’re worried they’ll lose support on something with a lot of proprietary bits.

 

[B22-2023]

I was thinking at one point to do the Stage 1 end cap/bushing mod from 74W on my HOSS 3.0 rack. Certainly not a priority but I’ll hold off just to keep the stock rack spring tensioner based on hearing all this, and weak support culture from 74W I’ve heard about here the past few months.

 

[SierraBronco]

I was thinking at one point to do the Stage 1 end cap/bushing mod from 74W on my HOSS 3.0 rack. Certainly not a priority but I’ll hold off just to keep the stock rack spring tensioner based on hearing all this, and weak support culture from 74W I’ve heard about here the past few months.

Instead of just hearing about it you can see it yourself on their thread.

https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/74weld-now-on-the-b6g-forum-page-31.90869/post-2579530

 

[BigMeatsBronco]

I sent 74 weld a DM.

 

[mpeugeot]

I'm curious if this is an issue for all of the 74WELD Steering Rack (Stage 3) complete housings. We shipped our Raptor stock rack to 74Weld for the housing swap. After a couple months noticed the steering clunking going into / out of the driveway. And investigated further...

Here's a video of the test procedure:


I emailed Quinn @ 74weld in Jan 2025. He called and explained the steering rack has a solid pinion spacer vs the spring tensioner in the stock housing. This essentially allows the pinion to not be tightly contacting the rack bar. He says strength is actually enhanced but the clunk is due to the gap not being tight enough. He told me they are working on a solution and would call me back in 6 months. No update yet.

I'll update this thread if / when there is a solution or the 74weld design is updated.

Who else has this clunk?

That's the sound of quality... Wow.

 

[BigFootie]

Instead of just hearing about it you can see it yourself on their thread.

https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/74weld-now-on-the-b6g-forum-page-31.90869/post-2579530

Wow, reading this brought me right back to certain boutique machine shop (Archtype Racing) in Washington state thread. I had to go and pop some popcorn.

 

[TeocaliMG]

Mine does not clunk like the video, but it does have a bit of a click. Having some OEM steering experience I understood from the start that this rack would have some amount of lash on center. Doesnt matter how nice 74Welds machines are, if you take the pinion/rack spring loaded yoke bearing out, you will have lash. If you didnt, the rack tolerance would be so tight that the steering effort would be ruined.

My dream rack would be essentially the same billet design, but with a window through the linear bearing to allow the OEM yoke bearing to be reused. Understandably this would make an already very expensive rack even more expensive.

Maybe they've had some tolerancing issues, because my rack is not that loud and I've got about 15k miles on it, including some serious wheeling. But I also did the swap myself and I had every vacancy in that rack packed to the gills with grease, mainly to combat potential water ingress, but also to take up a teeny tiny bit more backlash. Too much grease also impacts steering feel/friction but worth the tradeoff imo.

 

[userdude]

I have the full rack w/>10k miles on it and no issues yet... Hoping it stays that way. Not too confident, though.

 

[SierraBronco]

Mine does not clunk like the video, but it does have a bit of a click. Having some OEM steering experience I understood from the start that this rack would have some amount of lash on center. Doesnt matter how nice 74Welds machines are, if you take the pinion/rack spring loaded yoke bearing out, you will have lash. If you didnt, the rack tolerance would be so tight that the steering effort would be ruined.

My dream rack would be essentially the same billet design, but with a window through the linear bearing to allow the OEM yoke bearing to be reused. Understandably this would make an already very expensive rack even more expensive.

Maybe they've had some tolerancing issues, because my rack is not that loud and I've got about 15k miles on it, including some serious wheeling. But I also did the swap myself and I had every vacancy in that rack packed to the gills with grease, mainly to combat potential water ingress, but also to take up a teeny tiny bit more backlash. Too much grease also impacts steering feel/friction but worth the tradeoff imo.

Everytime we do something with the rack we pull the boots, clean the old grease from rack bar when cycling it completely, then regrease it with the grease you helped us find. Copper shavings have gone down dramatically from the first cleaning, so…I guess that’s good if the self clearancing process is finished?

 

[TruckCamper]

Everytime we do something with the rack we pull the boots, clean the old grease from rack bar when cycling it completely, then regrease it with the grease you helped us find. Copper shavings have gone down dramatically from the first cleaning, so…I guess that’s good if the self clearancing process is finished?

What is the magic grease? Wish aftermarket parts could be 20% as reliable and long lasting as OEM parts.

We are still running HOSS 2.0 on our 2dr on skinny 37s. Planning to do the HOSS 3.0 but probably keep it stock with stock tie rods. Aftermarket needs to get their crap together...

Sponsored