LBJ failures?

The lower ball joints on my 2006 were replaced because of a recall. Got the recall notice in the mail, took it to the dealer and had them replace them. No worries since and sold it to my daughter with 225,000 miles on it (it now has 320,000 miles on it).

Dan

 

Even after the recall, those items can fail and will fail given enough time and should be checked regularly.

 

I didn't worry about it since my 2006 was (is) 2wd and highway only, no off-road, no wheel/tire/suspension mods all stock.

Dan

 

Wear item. Also faulty design. The "fix" was not a fix, rather a beefier version of the flawed design. I would still look at 100k miles or so as a change interval. Obviously depends on driving habits.

 

Don’t let your LBJ break if you can help it. Sincerely, me.

 

My lower ball joints didn't fail on my 2005 (did the recall shortly after it was issued), but it did come apart.
It's a long story but someone (NTB) did work on my driver's side front end.
They forgot to put the cotter pin back in the LBJ spindle nut.

This happened 45 days later when I hit just the right bump in the road after the pin and nut fell off..
That was the last day I drove my 2005, I still miss her..

 

This is why I never trust generalist shops to touch my stuff and have always done virtually all of my work. Else it gets farmed out to a specialty shop I trust. I’ve gotten in the habit of double checking after anyone who does work on my truck, also.

 

It's a long story..
NTB screwed something up, repairing it was over their head, but they insisted they could fix it.
No charge to me and provided me with a rental, I gave in and let them fix it..

I never should have trusted them.
I wouldn't let an NTB employee put air in my tires..

I'm not sure why I vented it out on this thread, but this is what happened..
Post 11


Tail gate key for 2006 - won't lock - fixed now | Toyota Tundra Forum (tundras.com)

 

Crap, I remember that now. Super heinous.

I'd have been so freaking pissed, to the point of calling lawyers, and I generally highly dislike them.

 

Brutal, thanks for showing pics though.
A LBJ in compression may have never had that failure.

 

While I generally find you to be a toxic prick and pavement princess, I actually felt bad for you looking at these photos. Could happen to the best of us. And it happened to you too.

 

Thank you.

 

Those that have had LBJ failures, were there any warning signs prior? Popping, clicking, steering difficulty?

 

I never experienced steering difficulty but popping/clicking/clunking absolutely. If you hear any clunking/knocking from the front end, the LBJs should be checked right away. Mine would clunk especially when vehicle weight was being transferred from one side to the other, say if you were going up a driveway, or even if someone jumped on the running board.

My LBJ went out before I owned the truck, my grandfather was still driving it. Us not knowing how dangerous it was we just assumed it was worn out. It was an old truck to us- not worthy of lots of work. Little did we know!

 

Every oil change, give it the wiggle test. I'm replacing mine because the boos leak, not because the joints feel loose.

 

It's an up/down wiggle you want to do. Toyotas spec is a max of 0.020" of up and down play at the lower ball joint.

 

I swapped summer for winter tires on the weekend, tried the pry bar between the LCA and LBJ upper section for the wiggle test while the wheels were off (149k miles)

both were tight, no vertical or lateral wiggle. I should be good till I can get some LCA’s built. It’s a pretty big sense of relief, but I do see my passenger side wheel bearings are just about done, so rockauto to the rescue for that job in the next few weeks.

 

Moog strikes again.

 

I hit the like button for the picture above, only cause we don't have a "man that fricking sucks" button.

Worth a thousand words to define the "achilles heel"