Sway Bar End Links and Rust

Hi all, new member here.

I bought a 2003 Tundra AC with 150k miles in early June and have been really enjoying it. I had a pre-purchase inspection and everything checked out great (sent the mechanic the "so you're buying a 1st gen tundra" thread), rust and timing belt looked good but some things get missed. I bought the truck in Knoxville and have moved it up to Northern Michigan.

I am planning some upgrades to my tundra and got under it this morning to take a look at the bushings of my suspension. Those bushings look ok but I found that my front left sway bar end link has broken and there is rust on the frame just in front of the right rear tire.

Any suggestions on sway bar replacements? OEM? What about bushings?

How would you approach the rust? It seems like it is in early stages and the rest of the frame looks pretty good. I was planning to get the bottom undercoated with rust prevention for this upcoming winter but I'm wondering if I should get this fixed first.

Thanks in advance

 

Sway bar links aren’t a critical item. I go with Moog myself due to their lifetime warranty and greasable zerk fittings. However, OEM will easily last twice as long. Only downside is getting those bastards out when they fail. I haven’t found an easy method myself.

Not much you can do about the rust there but spray it with fluid film yearly. You could remove the secondary support and clean out the rust but you’d have to fabricate a new part to replace it. Either that or buy something from www.autorust.com to reinforce it.

 

Like Bill said, You can go with just about any sway bar end link for your application. You'll be replacing the cheap Moog and Movotech items more often than OEM. I think I'm on my 5th set of end links in 19 years. Current ones are TRQ. As for the rust, hit it with a wire brush to break in up and then treat the entire frame often. You'll need to stay on top of it as your teuck is now in southern Canada and will see more road salt than it ever did in Tennessee (TE?).

 

Really? What's the deal with that boot on the steering rack?

How can you even say this with a straight face? That's delamination on the frame rail, there's bubbling and scaling everywhere. Have you actually looked at the timing belt? Is there documentation of when it was changed last?

I'd be having words with this "mechanic".
I'm not trying to be a dick here, but damn. I would have skipped this one. Especially since you went to all the trouble to import it from TN. What was the point? Now instead of just applying rust preventative, you're having to mitigate a serious problem. And now I would be second guessing all of everything the "mechanic" said was "great". At this point, I would go through everything. Haven't even mentioned LBJs. If the front end is in that much dis-array, you might want to change them out.