You're welcome. I'm not so sure if you need to shock the bushing as you described. With enough heat, the bushing should come out without too much of a fight. But, glad to hear your technique worked out for you.

People do need to be careful of the amount of force they apply with the bottle jack and you have to use your best judgement. I always start out with a mild amount of force and then give a couple extra pumps once I heat up the arm really well. If the bushing doesn't move after a couple extra pumps, I use more heat. You don't want to bend your LCAs. That would be a bad thing.

It sounds like the guy never drove it in the winter to avoid the road salts. Or, he was just very good about washing the rig undercarriage really well after every outing on the icy roads.

i bought spare LCAs to minimize downtime. they both came from separate cars. one LCA was clean and one bushing even popped out without heat or shocking it.

the other arm looks like it led a harder life. the bushings were in there good. even with as much heat as i could give it, they werent budging. without doing my 'shock' technique on the salty arm, i would hit a wall when pumping the bottle jack and wouldnt be able to pump anymore. i reheated everything up as hot as i could get it again and started pumping more rapidly and that helped me get an extra pump past that 'wall'. that extra pump was all i needed to get it out. that was my final go at it per-se as i could tell the arm was already starting to expand. i figured doing it faster/more rapid would be easier on the steel and allow it to have a better chance to return to its original shape.

while i am down there i am going to do the rack bushings because your rack video convinced me that is not hard with that c clamp tool from o rileys. i do have two questions:

-why do you need to lock the steering wheel/rack?

-wouldnt it be easier if you trimmed the flange off the two locator bushings to allow the rubber not to bind so much as you are shoving it through the hole while removing? i did this technique on a IS300 i used to own and i feel like it really helped. granted, i was using a punch and a big ass hammer to remove the bushings on the IS, when i should have been using the clamp tool.

The bushing instructions said to lock the steering wheel but maybe that's not technically necessary because the steering rag joint is still connected to the steering rack so you couldn't throw the steering wheel centering off. At the time I didn't spend that much time analyzing this step. I just followed the instructions.

Now that I think about it more, maybe they say that step since you're completely unbolting the steering rack from the cross member and if the steering wheel starts to turn while you're working on replacing the bushings, you'll have to turn the wheel back where it was for the bolts to line back up. Also, in the video, we only disconnect the driver side tie rod and leave the passenger side one connected. If the passenger wheel turned a bit while working on the steering rack, it may pull the steering rack one way or the other without actually pulling or pushing the steering rack shaft out or in because the rack isn't bolted to the cross member. I hope that makes sense. With the steering wheel locked, you can guarantee the position of the rack hasn't changed and it will bolt back up no problem.

You could cut the bushing flange off first if you wanted and then use a punch or drift to knock it out. There was a guy that made a video of this same job that used that technique. I don't know if it's any easier though because you have to spend time cutting the bushing flange off. The c-press is sort of awkward and big so I can see how people would prefer the method you described. There's always more than one way to accomplish something and lots of times it comes down to personal preference based off the tools you own and also the technique you could come up with at the time you did the job.

kind of, but i will definitely lock the steering wheel. if the manual says to do it, i will do it. i was more or less wondering why.

as for the rack bushings. i dont want to use a punch and a hammer. it sucks swinging a hammer underneath a car like that. i more or less was asking about cutting off the flange so you its one less thing to bind and fight you when you are trying to press it out on the opposite side. although im sure if your bushings are toast, it wont really matter anyways.

thanks again!

The bushings aren't so stiff that it makes them hard to push out with the c-press so taking the extra step to cut the bushing flange off isn't necessary. You'll see what I mean when you do the job.

ah okay, well that is one less thing to do while im down there so thats good.

i went back and watched a bunch of your videos and wrote down big socket sizes and tq values. last time i worked on my runner i wish i had done this before hand. you are the best and inspire confidence that i can do the LBJs, rack bushings, cv shafts, and swap out control arms in the span of 3 days (i work slow as its just myself).

oh and while im thinking about it. i got an alignment not too long ago after i raised my 3rd gen. if im doing all of the above and mark the cam adjuster bolts, do you think it would be wise to get another alignment? if so, i will probably just end up getting tie rod ends as well.

thanks again!

You absolutely can do this all this yourself. It is best practice to get an alignment after all this, because even though you mark the cam adjusters, only an alignment machine will tell you if your camber and caster are still good after swapping out the LCAs. So, you may as well do the outer tie rods at the same time. Good luck with the work. Hopefully you won't have any frozen cam adjusters to deal with. If you do, watch Part 2 for the LCA bushing replacement because I cover cutting out the cam adjusters with a reciprocating saw. If that ends up being the case, Diablo Demon Carbide Tipped Blades will be your friend.

thank you!! that is what i figured. i will get an alignment after.

my car is from nevada and has very little rust (in CA now). i am really hoping nothing is seized. i am just glad im getting to all of this before the snow hits in my area.

Good Afternoon everyone,
just joined the forum and frankly not sure if i am posting in the appropriate section.

Anyhow, i recently re geared my 4runner to 4.88. Everything runs beautifully, however, we are experiencing a well defined clicking noise while making hard turns.

I have double checked to make sure it was not a CV axle.

What is strange is after re-lubricating my driveshaft the clicking noise briefly went away, but after sitting in the driveway for another week it seems to be back in full force.

I would love to hear what everyone has to say, could it be broken spider gears?

Thanks ALl

Who did the work for the re-gear? Was it a shop or did you do this yourself? I would think a driveshaft would make noise all the time and not just during a hard turn and same goes for the differential.

Clicking during a hard turn is the classic sign that a CV axle on it's way out. How did you double check it wasn't the CV axle? Maybe what you could do is get into an open parking lot after hours and have a friend help you out. You could turn tight corners while your buddy stands outside trying to listen where the source of the noise is coming from. This might help you narrow down whether it's coming from the front or the rear of the vehicle.

This is an amazing post for a new owner of a 99 4runner

My brother in law and i did the differential. We were really careful to set proper backlash/pinion depth/and smear test.
I have triple checked and it is not the CV axle. However, for more accurate description, what i am experiencing is only occurring on tight turns. When i let off the gas while cornering it is making a "clunk, clunk, clunk" noise. it is much different then a CV click. It happens on both left and right hand turns but only while decelerating.

We took it out in the parking lot to make sure it was coming from rear.

Well, if you don't think it's the re-gear work you guys did, make your control arm bushings are clucking around due to deterioration. Have you examined those yet?

And this is an open differential, correct? No lunch box locker? I know lunch box lockers can make a bunch of racket on turns. On a very tight turn the outside wheel needs to travel much faster than the inside wheel and maybe in this circumstance the noise is telling your something about your re-gear job.

I guess the question I should of asked you first is were you getting this noise on tight turns before the re-gear? If you weren't, I'd unfortunately have to say something isn't right with the job you and your brother in law did. From what I understand about working differentials is it's sort of an art and more than a few people have tried there hand at it and got it wrong. I'm not saying for sure you guys screwed up, but if the sound wasn't there before, I'd pull the 3rd member back out and take a look and double check your work.

What kind of gear oil are you using?

Also see mtbtim’s questions. I’m curious if there’s a locker in there too.