Took it apart today and found that I ripped the seal and its spewing grease (photo 1). I took the old OTRE and pushed it BY HAND through the LBJ hole and there was so much thread showing that the castle nut would already be too low (photo 2). So, either the OTRE taper rod is too thin or the LBJ hold is too large.

Next, I went to Napa and had them take out a NAPA Altrom LBJ (supposedly OES for Toyota OEM). I brought the old OTRE along - lo and behold, the Altrom LBJ hole is smaller and looks like a good fit. Maybe I enlarged the LBJ hole when the torqued down the OTRE. But I recall it was loose to begin with. I also noticed the Altrom was much beefier than my unit. Hmmm ...

So ... it looks like I will be getting new OTRE's from ToyotaPartsZone as well as and LBJ's. The takeaway from this? 1) Stick with OEM parts unless non-OEM parts are well-documented (i.e. shocks/springs, brake upgrade, etc.). Most of us are weekend wrenchers and I've wasted far too much time dicking around and trying to figure things out rather than paying a bit more to get things done and actually enjoy my rig. 2) Don't blindly torque down castle nuts like I did. Keep an eye for where the cotter pin hole is. As a result, I wasted 2 new OTRE's, the cost of the cheapo LBJ's, shop labor cost, as well as my own time.

Thanks everyone who chimed in to help out.

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