Do you ever meet LBJ non-believers?

Yesterday I'm refueling and in pulls a gorgeous 2006 double cab. Leather interior, sunroof(!). 200K plus miles.

I go over and speak with the driver. He's had it a long time, might have bought it new, and apparently really kept up on maintenance except for the lower ball joints. He seemed a bit incredulous that those could fail "without some sort of noise first."

Oh well, I did my duty.

Have you personally met a 1st Generation owner that didn't believe the LBJ's could fail spontaneously?

 

Yeah. My grandfather, who was the original owner. Me. Then it happened to us.

 

Yup - just this morning at the gas station.

 

No, I haven't personally.
I think it takes just a tiny bit of mechanical inclination to wrap your head around the idea that there could be potential weak point(s) / design flaw(s).
Especially when you look at the small suspension 'points' that hold up these trucks . . . especially the heavier crew cabs.
Some times I'm amazed more doesn't fail, and sooner.

My eyes were REALLY opened years ago when I walked into the Terrible Herbst shop where they were building some of their off road trucks.
They invited me in to look around and take the tour.
I knew less than ZERO about race trucks.
I was admiring one of the trucks, and was completely astonished how overbuilt it was to take the punishment of the Baja 1000 that they were prepping for.
I said something about it being a killer 'race truck', and the guy said 'Race Truck ?? . . . this isn't a race truck, this is just the pre-runner / support vehicle, it's built for comfort and even has AC" !!! . . . then he pointed and said, "That's the race truck over there" . . . which was just nothing more than a cage . . . I guess it had just came back from being de-stressed / heat treated. Completely blew my mind.
At that time he said the shocks alone were $4K each !

From that point on I looked at lifted 'street trucks' a whole lot different.

 

Lot of Kobe superfans out there.

… wait

 

I see about half a dozen per week between the three big Facebook 1st gen groups. It's fucking aggravating.

 

The non-believers are easy to spot... that color mismatched fender.

 

I think it's hilarious lol let Darwin weed'em out

 

Driving to work the other day I see a coworker on the side of the road, truck leaning, wheel is in a crazy direction. Look underneath, and guess what I see? Lyndon B. Johnson has left the building.

 

None that I've spoken to. I have seen a number of 1st gen Tundras in people's driveways or on the highway with failed LBJs though.

Most people I talk to are asking my opinion on parts for their other cars, stuff like buying their lower ball joints, lower control arms, and wheel bearings for $143 from Amazon (for all of it). I tell them they should buy OEM and not from Amazon. They tell me Amazon says it's OEM (it's not) and they buy crap like that anyway and wonder why they have to replace it every few months.

 

I think we'll start seeing the same with cheap UCA soon, given all these mainland China re-pop uppers coming out, look to be the same Freedom was using but are being sold under KSP brand and half a dozen other names now. Pretty sure these are the same @VR6T installed but his are black?

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I knew you were gonna post this. LOL I saw this am while in bed

Me AND @VR6T have them. But he ran his without grease for a little while and he tows more shit than I do. So he maybe in line for some new uppers before me.

 

Just changed mine out at 192k miles with OEM ones just to be safe. original owner since 2005. Old LBJ still felt fine but new ones definitely made it feel stiffer up front.

 

I can understand the ones that fail while being abused, but why to so many fail in parking lots or driveways?

 

I don’t talk to other first gen owners around where I live here. Most are landscapers and speak Spanish or Portuguese.

The 2nd and third gen owners are still in amazement I’m driving this thing.

 

I've gotten gas station offers for $10k as is. Theres a local contractor with a best gen & gmc wheels & an old man at the vet that i've talked to. But i see prideless haggard abused trucks all the time.

 

This! The only other 1st gens I see are beat to hell and used by landscaping or drywalling companies with bad logos. The 2nd and 3rd gen people I talk to don't get it. "Why wouldn't you get something newer?"

That's a great question- mine failed at 2mph. I wonder why it's so common. Maybe the joint wears more when the wheels are turned, so as soon as the angle changes it pops out? Idk.

When mine went we were pissed for five minutes, then realized that we had just gotten off the highway and if the joint had failed 30 seconds earlier we likely wouldn't have been standing there. We were a lot less unhappy about it then. We were in a rough spot financially and fixing a failed LBJ is far from what we needed. But we still felt lucky- really really lucky.

 

Every time I see a best gen I wave. No waves back. Most of the FGT owners in my immediate area have them out of necessity, not desire.

Only exception was a young kid in a white AC. Saw him coming up quick in my rear view and decided to show him my power and suspension upgrades. Seen him a couple times on the same stretch of road.

 

I pass one on my commute home every day, I've waved and thrown the duces/point a couple times, and nothing
I then realized I'm in a different class of Tundra owner

 

Welcome back

 

driving to and from home every day, there is a person with a nice clean tundra with a canopy often in driveway......last night it was there...with a blown out driver side lbj

 

Only people that wanna talk to me are tacomas and 4Runners

 

must be the fishy smell.

 

I think the 4R shares our LBJ design or at least did at one time.

 

Also knuckles.

 

As prevalent as the problem is, i'm surprised there arent more SAS'd best gens. Like gm's with aftermarket lights, and sporty fwd's with aftermarket front bumpers.

 

And all first gen Tacomas. I don't know how 4Runner gens break down but Tacoma had the failure-prone LBJs from 95-2005, entire run of the first gen.

 

4runners 96-2002 had the issue

 

Yep, looks like you're right (give or take a few months). I've posted it before, but this shows the breakdown. Unfortunately it doesn't include the Tundra.

 

I wonder if you could replace FGT UCA, Knuckle and LCA with 2003+ 4R parts to solve this?