Lower ball joints/part numbers

See if there's still an open recall on your original LBJs. Log in to the Toyota website and use your VIN to look up the recalls on your truck.

 

It's been my experience that grease in a decently sealed joint can last, without drying out and turning into something akin to amber/rosin, for 20-30 years. I've seen it be the case on autos, motos, and even vintage bicycles, in suspension parts, hubs, bottom brackets, headsets and other places. But once it does harden, it'll brinell the hell out of races/seats, and do a hell of a lot of damage.

A quick squeeze should tell you if the grease inside the boot is still ripe or not.

 

After a delayed shipping experience due to a huge fiasco with my private P.O. Box becoming under investigation i finally got my parts in and installed.

First up is the discrepancy between flange bolts for my vin and model year. Well I can confirm that both the 90105-A0187 and the 90105-12316 are the exact same flange bolts. They have the same thread pitch and same markings in the bolt head.

Second up is that with the right tools and patience, this job took approx 1.5 hours for my first time through. Most of which was spent on the first side figuring out how to seperate the LBJ from the LCA. Second side took about 20 minutes.

Apparently the last time someone changed these out they decided to use an odd bolt to complete the task... so not only do both part numbers work, one can always find a replacement if they have the intuition and know how to make it work.

 

PO Box under investigation … heh. I don’t even wanna know.

Glad you got it done. I like to take a paint marker and mark my bolt heads afterward, so I have a position to read, in case they back out. Usually take a peek at every oil change. Probably a futile exercise, but it’s how I was taught with critical bolts.

 

That's a great idea.

It wasn't the usps, but a private business box address. Business owner is under invistigation by usps so they confiscated everyone's mail while he was under invistigation. We just started getting packages released and should be getting our mail again soon. It's been well over a month of headaches. We (all the box holders) don't know the true reason why he came under investigation yet, but the rumor mill has it that he was shipping out cocaine using box holders names as the senders.

 

Gah, that's a headslapper. Sorry to hear you got caught up in some crap like that. I mean, not like you directly, but your mail. Nobody asks for inconveniences at the sake of idiots.

 

Is two or three days a reasonable amount of time to drive on new LBJs and TREs prior to getting an alignment? Trying to figure the timing.

 

What TRE's did you use? Of course OEM is the best, but seems to be triple the price of aftermarket.

I just did LBJ and found one TRE boot torn. I could probably drive it for another couple of years on it, but plan on getting an alignment done after I replace my struts next week so it probably makes sense to swap TRE also before alignment.

I'll replace the sway links also, but I don't think that's alignment related.

 

I haven't done it just yet, but bought OEM LBJs and TREs. Likely will do it this weekend, but don't want to wait too long....I just did the bushings on my sway links last weekend. The bushings were shot, but the rest of the link was fine. We're very blessed with low rust conditions in New Mexico.

Funds allowing, I say go OEM. The originals lasted how long?

 

Yes, as long as those 2-3 days aren't going to be driving from Jacksonville FL to NorCal or something.

Unless you're grossly out of alignment - like to the point you can visibly see your tires are out on camber or toe \ / - it's going to take hundreds of miles to get out of whack.

Most people can ballpark things in by ensuring you have roughly the same amount of threads exposed on each tie rod pair and the front edges and rear edges of your tires are equidistant (board on ground alongside each tire, measure across boards), and a 2ft-3ft level vertically against the tire shows they're (at least) close to center while on the ground is enough to get you by for weeks, if not months. Is it the "right" way? No. Will it get you by? Absolutely.

 

Thanks. I was thinking about using Teflon tape plus number of turns to "mark" TREs...

 

Depends...I bought 4 new Michelins then drove straight to the alignment shop.