Upper Ball Joints

Greetings All,

I had my tires rotated today and asked the shop to check my ball joints out of curiosity. They reported back that the UBJs needed replacing but the LBJs were fine. Is this a common thing? If UBJs are supposedly needing replacement is it necessary to do them if LBJ are fine?

 

Well, if you dont want it to break, making the whole spindle comes out and bury the wheel itself into the wheel well, then yes replace it. If you dont mind all this happening, then just wait for it to fail. You will know when it does, hopefully at low speeds.

 

I knew the answer to that question lol should’ve communicated it differently. Does it make sense to do only uppers or should I go ahead and do lowers with it, even if lowers are fine?

 

Lowers are far more robust than the uppers, but if you have over 100k miles (rhetoric) you may as well get it all done and everything will be fresh. Fred Anderson is having a 15% Memorial Day Sale going on...hard to beat OEM unless you're sitting on aftermarket UCAs and shocks...regardless, do it once and be certain than you can go anywhere without issues. Are your Lower Ball Joints separate than the Lower Control Arm? I just purchased, this morning, new Lower Control Arms that include the LBJs and bushings for my 2005 v8 4runner from FA...

 

On these Gen 1 trucks, the UPPER ball joint would never need replacing before the LOWER ball joint, unless something damaged it.
The LBJ is a key weakness and needs to be replaced every 90-100K or 9-10 years, with OEM only. They are not that expensive, easy to change and there's a sale going on now if you order online. You'll also need to replace the bolts (8 of them). LBJ comes with a new castle nut and cotter pin.

The UBJ really doesn't wear out until serious mileage unless the boot was damaged.

 

I was reading thru this and wondering when a 1st Gener was going to step in and there was Fragman at the end with sound advice.

 

We’ve had this truck for at least 10 years, currently sitting ~237k. We’ve never replaced the ball joints, and don’t know if they were replaced by the prior owner.

That’s why I thought it was peculiar that the shop said LBJs were fine but the UBJs needed attention. From a glance, LBJ boots aren't shredded or mangled. UBJs are starting to show wear. Unfortunately I can’t thoroughly check them as I don’t have jacks/stands/proper tools/etc.

I’m leaning towards getting everything replaced on both sides, which I believe that would mean UCAs and LCAs, bolts, as well.

I recently started diving into the truck, so learning all the maintenance, most common issues, etc. mostly did routine stuff up until now.

thanks everybody

 

Lower ball joints don't often give you a warning before snapping, and should be replaced with new OEM balljoints (since aftermarket of EVERY brand name are totally unreliable) every 100k miles just to be safe; failure is catastrophic. For good measure, replace the 4 bolts per side also.

If you're replacing the uppers and have no history of the lowers being replaced, you should replace both at same time.

This is not an exaggeration. You CANNOT trust anything except genuine lower ball joints. IDGAF what you use for the uppers (but OEM is close to aftermarket in price). But this thread is 20+ pages of people who didn't heed the warning about only using OEM LBJ's: https://www.tundras.com/threads/first-gen-lower-ball-joint-lbj-failures.141860/

 

Yep, do the lowers immediately. Like 130,000 miles ago. If the uppers need it, they need it. I replaced my uppers at 225,000, but only because the boots were torn. The joint itself was actually still good, they just couldn't have stayed that way for long with torn boots.