**** Edited: The answer is that the movement I saw in the control arm was normal, but the noise is not. I probably didn't have to replace the bushings, but oh well. See post 35. ****

Original post below:

While replacing my front spring recently, I noticed that with the shock/spring assembly out, I can move the LCA up and down fairly easily (with the pivot bolts still fully tightened).

I don't recall ever being able to move a control arm this easily without loosening the pivot bolts in any other vehicle.

Is this normal for a 4Runner?




.

Nooo

It will move up and down but it should be firm, any side play or wiggle and the control arm bushings are bad. Aftermarket poly bushings will move easily up and down

Ooops, looks like I had the video set to private. Any thoughts on this?

Pretty please? Help a brutha out??

As long as the bushings aren't torn then this really isn't a problem. You don't want the bushings to be binding during rotational movement otherwise that causes tearing stress on the bushing rubber.

Edit: You don't want any side to side or up and down play in the bushing, but ease of rotation is fine.

4Runner4Leon When I did the front end on my 3rd gen, it definitely wasn't as loose as this. My guess would be your LCA/UCA bushings are worn "in", but whether they have any lateral play or not is the big question.

Good to know you won't be turning green on any of us...

Thanks guys, that's reassuring. I didn't notice any play in the control, just the fairly easy up/down movement. Maybe I'm stronger than I thought, who knew . I'll leave it be for now, LCA bushing replacement looks like a narly job.

Leon, check the tightness of the front cam bolt with a torque wrench if you have one. The torque spec is 96 ft-lbf. You won't be able to get onto the rear one with a torque wrench unless you have a 22mm crows foot wrench you can attach because the steering rack will be in your way. If I were you, I'd double check the front cam bolt on both sides with a torque wrench and then for the back cam bolts I'd get onto it with a long 22mm box end wrench and crank on it. When alignment shop techs do an alignment, they usually don't break out torque wrenches. How do I know this? It's because I've watched a few alignments happen on my rigs and they just get onto the bolts with big box end wrenches and crank them down to that German spec of "Gudentite".

I would have to say that your control arm is moving way to easy and I suspect that the last guy who did the alignment on your rig hasn't been pumping enough iron because he didn't get them as tight as they should be. If you're going to follow my advice, have the wheels weighted by the rig and not suspended in the air. Bushings should be in their neutral spot when you tighten them so they aren't bound up or have torque on them at a state of rest.

Hey Tim, that front bolt seemed pretty tight when I put a box end on it (I couldn't put a torque wrench on it with the skid in place, and I didn't bother taking it off in the moment). I can do that and try again.

I'm just puzzled by this because I'm used to control arms where the outer sleeve is pressed into the control arm, and the inner sleeve is pinched by the bolt and nut, so the only motion that occurs is due to the bushing rubber flexing - and that's usually pretty hard to do by hand. This seems much too easy, like something is actually rotating rather than rubber flexing.

If the bolts are tight then the bushing rubber might have torn enough to allow that easy movement of the arm. I'd take the skid off and take a closer look at the bushings. But, if you're not experiencing any front end problems, maybe just leave it alone for now.

Too floppy. Likely torn bushings as they look like original rubber. Doesn't appear to have any resistance or "spring back" jounce to it in the video.

Generally to move the arm down like that requires a 2'+ long pry bar if all the pivot bolts are tight (wedged in the upper arm). I'd wager you have some torn bushings. They may just not be loose enough to wiggle in other ways with manual manipulation yet.

-Charlie

Yeah, this all makes sense. I don't feel any springback like I would expect from properly performing bushings. The truck drives great though, so I may just let this go for now (see no evil) until I find a reason to pull out the steering rack, or Timmy decides he has to make an LCA bushing video .

Sean and I already made two videos on this subject Leon. You're a day late and a dollar short. You could utilize Part 1 to swap out your bushings if you don't own a press. We showcase the bottle jack technique in this video:



Since some guys had managed to destroy their control arms using too much force and maybe not enough heat using the bottle jack technique, we decided to make another video showing how you can do it with a press. I debated if using a press would work but @sleepydad proved it can work with a Harbor Freight 20 ton press. So, we followed his lead and made our own video on using this technique. The other reason for Part 2 was to cover how to deal with frozen cam adjuster sleeves. It's fairly common to find one or more of your cam adjusters rusted into the bushing sleeve and no amount of pounding on them will free them. So, you have to cut them out. Here's Part 2: