| Installing Rancho Steering Stabilizer | |
 Submitted by dandunham |
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| 1. First things first. You will need the Rancho Steering Stabilizer and the stabilizer mounting kit. I used the kit for the full-sized Montero. Rancho p/n's RS5000 steering stabilizer PN# RS5402. Steering stabilizer install kit PN# RS5508. |
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| 2. Make sure you park the SUV on a flat surface with the wheels straight ahead. I decided to use some auto ramps to get the SUV even higher than it was, this helped get under the SUV. | |
| 3. Remove the entire skidplate. | |
| 4. Then take the mounting kits large U bolt and slide it over the axle on the passenger side and tighten the bolts just enough to hold it in place. This is a wire and metal tube that you need to be careful with. I simply lifted the cable up and zip striped it up to a mounting point that was out of the way. |
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| 5. The next step was to take the stabilizer and place the piston in the correct position so you can set the second mounting bracket. I followed the instructions on the sheet provided with the stabilizer. It turns out that the piston should have at least 2 inches of travel. After setting the piston, position the second mount that attaches to the steering rod. Make sure when you are positioning the second bracket that you use the washers and bushings that are provided in the kit or you will not get an accurate position. |
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| 6. When finding the correct position for this mounting bracket, you will need to take in to account the clearance from the stabilizer and the differential. It will look a tight fit, but I found that you will have about a 1/2 to 3/4 inch gap between the two parts. |
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| 7. The other thing you will find is that when you tighten down the piston on the large mount on the axle, you will need to trim the piston mounting stud that sticks straight out, as it will hit the axle hub mounting plate. |
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| 8. In addition to that, you will need to cut down one of the rubber bushings so you can get the mounting bolt for the stabilizer to protrude enough to get the nut on. |
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| 9. Now comes the fun part. At this point you need to make sure there are no parts hitting other parts...that's always a bad thing. Tighten things up, including both mounts and the stabilizer to the mounts. Turn on the SUV and slowly move the steering from one extreme to the other. If you have a buddy, it makes this much faster, if not, you will need to take it just a bit at a time. | |
| 10. After confirming you have no binding or parts hitting, tighten down both mounts and make sure you use locking nuts on all the mounts. | |
| 11. Now you can remove the stabilizer and install the red boot that comes with it. After re-installation, I noticed that the red boot rubs on the differential, but decided that it is not causing any binding problems. I tightened down both ends of the stabilizer with the nuts supplied and added locking nuts of my own. |
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| Back to DIY | |
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