I just fixed my steering gears- The pictures were very helpful, and basically the same as for my 1997 LS 400.
I used 1 plastic water-hose washer to shim up the gear, and lubed up the whole set-up. It works beautifully, but I suppose in future, it may need further shims to be added.
If the gear was found to be damaged, I had been thinking of taking it to a machine shop and see if they could duplicate a new gear of brass.