Lower Ball Joint Caution

I recently replaced my lower ball joints and found something interesting/scary. The Toyota bolts are extremely soft and I wonder if they are causing people to have failures. The service manual states to torque the 8 bolts (4 on each side) to 59 ftlbs. Good luck with that, I ended up snapping the head off of one completely, and I took the rest out and all were severely stretched.

The bolts are part numbers 9011910933 (these go over dust protector holes) and 9010510505. Having stretched bolts in a critical suspension component is a major safety hazard and a disaster waiting to happen. I couldnt torque them down past 40 ftlb's without them stretching, so that is what I did with a new set of bolts.

To anyone doing their lower ball joints, watch for stretched bolts.

 

Are you sure about the 80 lbs? I think they are more like 56.

 

Sorry youre right. I torqued to 59 ftlbs not 80 I re-read the manual again when I posted and saw 80nm. The bolt head snapped at 56 ftlbs. I made the correction in the original post.

 

I'm not right often, I looked it up on an 05-06

Connect the lower ball joint with lower ball joint dust cover protector to the steering knuckle with the 4 bolts.

Torque: 65 N·m (662 kgf·cm, 48 ft·lbf)

We may be talking different years. I only remembered because I did them this year and thought it was low. But I've also learned I tend to over torque if I don't look it up.

 

Yes this is the 2000-2003 service manual. In searching if a prior thread had been posted on this, I came across this: https://www.mighty90s.com/forums/di...j-bolts-and-why-its-important-prado-90-series

Scary.

 

I broke two of mine also. Good times.

 

Wow, that's a great resource! Thanks for posting it.

 

Loctite and hand tight with a 16 inch socket wrench is what I do. Although loctite isn’t needed with the natural corrosion my vehicle gets.

 

Little niggling detail to point out here, if your copy/pasta from the owner's manual is correct.

OP is saying he torqued to 56 ft·lb. The manual states they're to be torqued to 65 N·m.

So yes, it makes sense they would snap or stretch well into the 50s of foot-pounds. 56 foot pounds is nearly 76 Newton meters! Already tighter than OEM spec. [Edit...] 48 foot pounds would put you on target @2uzfe2000

If so, this is a classic mistake to make. And there are some places - as I think @FirstGenVol found out with his transmission pan bolt(s)? - that Toyota flip-flopped the two, which doesn't help.

 

The 2000-2003 service manual asks for 80nm.

 

Is it potentially a part change issue? Or a misprint in the manual?

 

Everyone thinks I broke my trans pan bolts. I did not. I just stripped the drain plug. Manglers don't lie.

 

Hence the (s) at the end of bolt(s). Drain plug would be "bolt". Pan bolts would be "bolts". "bolt(s)" covers both bases.

But am I wrong, was the torque value in the manual incorrect?

 

I don't remember.

 

Torque values are different for each year (don't ask me why).

https://www.tundras.com/threads/possible-05-06-fsm-lbj-x-knuckle-torque-misprint.72731/#post-2755949

 

Someone at Loctite apparently earned their PhD with the "thesis" attached. Fascinating reading (if you have all day), and way more information than any one human needs.

https://dm.henkel-dam.com/is/content/henkel/LOCTITE-Threadlocker-Manual

The Internet suggests that torque should be REDUCED by ~ 20% when using thread locker to prevent the elongation of bolts due to over tightening. Section 6 in the Loctite Manual (pg 30) addresses this.

That said, however, OEM bolts appear to be factory coated with Loctite (or some such thing), so I'm confident that their torque recommendations reflect this. If you ADD Loctite (or anti-freeze, et al)...beware.

 

I think you're referring to this thread, posts #16 and #17?
https://www.tundras.com/threads/transmission-plug-stripped-pan-replacement.105466/

 

Yes! Thanks for digging that up. I was coming up empty.

 

Bringing this up again because I just did the same thing to one of the bolts, glad I kept the other 8 that I replaced (the threads are still good, I was being proactive).

Wanted to check the torque and "pop", a start to bad evening. Let it be known that I was being a dumba$$ and left it on the ground, so the downward force didn't help. Also, kids, don't do truck stuff when you're sick...no matter how OCD you are feeling. You will no think good.

Luckily (maybe, hopefully, praying) a decent amount of the threads came off with the head, so I might be able to work it straight through without much trouble.

 

I hope you are able to remove the broken bolt with little fuss. But why are you rechecking the torque? These aren't lug nuts. If anything I'd liken them to "torque to yield" head bolts. Plus you install them with a gob of red loctite so any additional twisting once cured will break the loctite bond. Yes? No?

 

Just a habit after replacing/reinstalling parts after X amount of miles. They die hard, you know...

Bolt came out relatively easy. Used a locking needle nose vice grip, taped the ends to try and save the teeth and worked her back and forth. Got to a point where the cv was in the way, so I cut as much as I could with the Dremel before getting the a bolt cutter in there. Cleaned the hole as best I could, worked the new bolt in gently, and we're good to go.

 

Here's a thought... 59x .2 =11.8. 59-11.8= 47.2.

Maybe they just rounded up to 48, forgot to put a fpn indicating that the 48 is for bolts with loctite on them from factory or added. And this is the start of all of the confusion, they printed it forgot something or we're not seeing something notated in the manual as to which is for which situation. For the '05-'06 anyways.

 

thought I saw a thread listing all the different lbj bolts and torque values

 

More or less:
https://www.tundras.com/threads/spiker-engineering-lower-ball-joint-bolt-test-1st-gen.111746/

"00-01(02-04 no protector) OEM "green" bolt PN 9008010066 Torque to 59ft-lbs (SINGLE USE BOLT ONLY)
00-03(04) ARP bolts (stronger but higher cost) 663-1004
00-03(04) "Black" bolt for use with protector only 9011910933 Torqued to 37ft-lbs
04-06 PN 9010512316 Torqued to 59 ft-lbs according to @shifty`. Spiker states up to 80ft-lbs is also ok."

 

thanks that is the one I saw, spiker also did it on the 3rd gen 4runner forum

 

bringing back a thread from 2 years ago.




But. Video i watched has the 4 bolts at 47 ft lbs.

 

Yeah man, I get it. I mistakenly posted in this instead of the spiker test initially. I figure it can't hurt being as it's probably the main safety concern people have with these trucks (aside from a Rusty frame snapping in half) and for good reason. A lot of confusion about this in general.

 

This all has me concerned (again) about my wheel studs

I had to get onto the shop that did my tires and alignment. I told them each time they should be torqued to about 85 to 89 ft/lbs. and yet every time I checked behind them I could tell they were easily over 100 probably at about 120 ft/lbs

the last time they told me they told me they bought a torque wrench and would torque them to my specifications. But like I told them I was worried about the stress and possible stress fractures

 

It varies based on bolts and the bolts vary based on year. Know which fastener you’re installing, and torque based on fastener spec versus some video which may or may not match your year or bolt!

 

Since this thread has been brought back up, it appears OP was using the "black" bolts to be used with the protector that are supposed to be tightened to 37 ft-lbs and not 59 so I guess it makes some sense that they would break.