This Question has been resolved, the Whiteline Installation Tutorial can be found here: Whiteline Lower Control Arm Bushing Tutorial (120+ Pictures)
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Hello All, I'm needing some help with LCA bushings that appear to have excessive play. I tried to break it up into some sections to try and explain my situation as best as possible.

Background:
As a quarantine project, I am replacing the alignment cams and my lower control arm bushings. I know most people would recommend replacing the whole LCA, but I have a lot of time right now and am willing to put in the extra work. I figure I will take the hard road try to learn a bit, then do a writeup afterwards for others. There are lots of writeups out there on the energy suspension bushings, but my cams are probably seized into the bushings beyond the point of reusing the sleeves. A few 3rd gen writeups recommended the Whiteline bushings, so I figured I would get the 4th gen equivalent bushings. Unfortunately there weren't really any complete threads on the 4th gen whitelines, only a few half complete threads without an active OP.

Parts:
I ordered the Whiteline W53312 LCA bushing kit from Amazon and all OEM alignment cam bolts from McGeorge Toyota. I am sure that the cams are the correct part numbers, I cross referenced this post by NeutronJon and this one by blackfc3s to make sure I had the correct ones.

Question:
I did a dry fit on my desk, and I was struck by the amount of play between the bushing's inner sleeve and the cam bolt. My understanding is control arm rotation should occur between the bushing ID and the sleeve OD, which is greased on assembly. Let me know if this is incorrect, I'm trying to learn all I can. I feel like the amount of play in the sleeve is beyond normal, since it is not supposed to rotate on the alignment cam.

In the case that this is normal, does tightening the bolts take up the slop? Tightening the bolt will limit movement front to back and would rely on only friction to hold them in the in, out, up, down directions (maybe call it r, θ direction lol).

Relevant Threads:
LCA bushings

• Orders the W53377A set (I think is for 3rd gen based on reading) and W53312 set (intended for 4th gen) to see which is correct
• Mentions that the W53377A set (intended for 3rd gen) is probably the correct one for the 2003
• Mentions in another thread they're having trouble pressing in W53312 bushings (intended for 4th gen)
• Build thread says has whiteline LCA bushings, but never mentions which set was used
• Made me second guess if I ordered the correct set, although both Amazon and Whitelines site said the kit that I ordered is compatible

Whiteline VS OEM LCA bushings

• gx470, but front suspension similar to 4th gen
• Initially orders Siberian bushings but fitment is not right
• Then orders the same Whiteline that I got and installs with success
• Mentions Whitelines fit and work great. Since had fitment issue with others, I think would mention if had play in the whitelines

Measurements:
I took measurements a bit after posting this, and the pictures can be found in post #14 linked here: https://www.toyota-4runner.org/3493028-post14.html
The OD of the rear cam bolt is a close to 13.5mm
The ID of the rear bushing sleeve is close to 14.5mm
The OD of the front cam bolt is a hair over 19mm
The ID of the front bushing sleeve is just about 20mm


Videos (should open in new Imgur tab if you click the image):
Embedded videos do not seem to work on mobile, so they've been posted as unlisted on youtube
rear bushing sleeve play: YouTube
front cam bolt and bushing sleeve play: YouTube
front bushing play: YouTube
front bushing play 2: YouTube

Front LCA Bushing Video:


Rear LCA Bushing Video:


Also, I do notice the rear cam bolt has a shoulder on the head side, but not on the nut side. There is also a ridged section on the nut side of the bushing, what is the function of this?


Pic of the dry fit, in case there is something obviously wrong:

I started in on these not long after brian3676 did his... mine are still sitting collecting dust in the garage... i am a master procrastinator.

I measure a 9/16" ID on that rear bushing sleeve.
The WL bushings have one side that is slightly longer than the other side of the bushing, The longer side should be pointed to the outside, your (dry fit) pic has one side backwards.

Seems like to much gap in that pic you posted, cam bolt/WL bushing sleeve.
Wrong bolts?

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it

I sent out some pms to some posters that were active within the last month, brian was one of them. Hopefully I heard something back and can nail down the issue

Thanks for that confirmation, I did take a measurement and got 9/16 as well for the bushing sleeve ID


Thanks you're right, I missed that on the dryfit

Yeah, I agree that its a bit more gap/play than I would feel comfortable with. Good to hear I'm not going insane. I was thinking wrong cam bolts as well, but I used 2 different threads with the same exact parts lists to confirm they were right. These are the lists here: Lower Control Arm Replacements? - Page 7 - Toyota 4Runner Forum - Largest 4Runner Forum and here: Need Cam Bolts and Sleeves? - OEM Part #s. Visually, they also look like the old cams that are currently on there. Year, model, and trim were all on invoice, so I hope they would have called me with any incompatibilities. I'll add a pic of the invoice here too:


edit: added part about visually matching old ones

I can't watch the videos for some reason. Are those pics with the bolts tightened down? It's my understanding that these bushings are supposed to allow the LCA to rotate freely, that is where the improvement in driveability comes from supposedly. I've been leaning towards these rather than new LCA's. Following.

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Thanks for the response! Was hoping the embedded video thing would work, but for now, I uploaded them as unlisted to youtube since thats easy. Here are the links:
rear bushing sleeve play: YouTube
front cam bolt and bushing sleeve play: YouTube
front bushing play: YouTube
front bushing play 2: YouTube

The bolts are only hand tight on my desk. I could go out and cut the old control arm bolts and bolt these ups before pressing into the control arms. I'm scared to get in too deep haha.

Yeah I liked that they offered some slight handling benefits over the standard rubber bushing, or even other poly bushings. My understanding from reading up is the control arm rotation should occur between the bushing ID and the sleeve OD, which is greased on assembly. The rotation isn't supposed to occur metal on metal between the sleeve ID and the cam OD. Am I understanding this correctly?

I guess what you're saying makes the most logical sense. Might be worth reaching out to whiteline if you don't want to try the install first.

Another thing to take into consideration is you'll want to grease these liberally. Might be why there's a small amount of wiggle. Also the bushings won't sit right against the cam plates like that installed, it'll have the frame mount in there as well. Torqued to spec I'd speculate (lol) they'll fit fine.

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The OEM bushing ID is 9/16" too, btw.
And the w53312 was the same ones i did.

I would check the new to the old bolts when you get it apart, if they match up, go for it.
Seems like a bolt that is the same 9/16" the whole length would be better...must be by design, flex for the caster/camber?

Taco guys swear by Superlube for the grease.

I will try and get mine on within the next couple weeks.

If you cant get the OEM bushings out...

Attached Images

 

Yeah I'll probably give them a call tomorrow and update.

As for grease, Backoff had mentioned the taco guys like superlube and I had read that as well. Before, I was thinking of getting a marine grease, so that water getting in there would have trouble displacing a grease meant to withstand water. I still gotta finalize the grease choice.

True, the frame mounts will be sandwiched in there. The front bushing actually won't really tighten up without them in there. Odd how they don't use the same cam design front and rear.

Thanks for confirming the dimensions and bushing kit.

I'll do the best comparison I can after the massacre of seized cams haha. Just looking from the outside, everything appears to be the same. Of course, they could be different on the inside.

Yeah I had read about superlube, but also considered some marine grease. I was figuring a grease aimed to withstand water might do well on the suspension that gets splashed or submerged, but I dunno. Still gonna finalize by research on that

Oof, looks like a lot of cutting. I'm hoping I can melt the circumference so it will release and then either bottle jack or press them out the rest of the way. The jack method scares me that it could bend the control arm. I've seen a few other tricks on tacomaworld, but I'm also ready to go buy a big press from harbor freight. New toys are always fun

Forgot about these, Tacotabs.
9/16" bolt

Poly Performance Tab Alignment Cam Delete Kit for Toyota 05-15 Tacoma, 03-09 4Runner, GX470, 07-09 FJ Cruiser | POLY PERFORMANCE

I've been running the Whiteline bushings in my OE LCAs for over two years. I don't recall ever testing the cam bolts in the bushing before installation, so I can't say for certain that I did or didn't have any play. Either way, I haven't had any issues that I'm aware of with movement of the LCAs, loss of alignment, etc. One of my quarantine tasks has been to drop the LCAs to check on the cam bolts and re-grease, so it will be a good opportunity for me to check for what you are describing.

I will also confirm which type of grease I used. I'm a big fan of Superlube, but I often try to use a high-temp bearing or marine grease where there may be water ingress. I'll double-check what I used in this case.

I mentioned this in FB but I'll mention it here to help the info get out. I had trouble replacing my rear lower control arm bolt with a longer bolt after welding on Eimkeith's LLS kit.

The bolt is a M14 bolt, and I bought a new M14 bolt. I went to slide it through the mount holes and the threads screwed through, like the OEM bolt, then the shank stopped dead in its tracks. After much brain racking, and measuring, I've determined that Toyota uses a Japanese Standard Metric which has a narrower shank than thread.

So on an M14 OEM bolt, the threads are 14mm and the shank is 13mm. On a normal metric bolt, the shank and thread is 14mm. The hole in my bushing was 14mm and for the normal 14mm shank fit just fine. What this tells me is that Toyota has designed these bushings with the "loose" tolerances. Why? I don't know...maybe less seizing?

Update:
I did contact Whiteline and talked to a helpful representative on the phone. They're going to send my information down under to Whiteline AU so they can take a look at it.
I took some measurements as well. Unfortunately my digital calipers ran out of battery, so going to have to give up some accuracy read these the manual way

With the pn label still on, the OD of the rear cam bolt is a close to 13.5mm:


The ID of the rear bushing sleeve is close to 14.5mm:


The OD of the front cam bolt with the label on is a hair over 19mm:


The ID of the front bushing sleeve is just about 20mm:


This was also posted to a 4th gen facebook group and @Runn4est over there had brought to my attention that the bolts Toyota uses are a Japanese standard. The thread peaks have a larger diameter than the shank, rather than the thread peaks having the same diameter as the shank on normal bolts. The discrepancy in these measurements could be causing the slop.
I have a picture that trys to show that here:


The thread diameter on rear cam bolt is a hair over 14mm, whereas we saw earlier the bolt shank diameter was around 13.5:

Thanks, this is great info. Glad to hear you didn't have any issues, that makes me feel better. I am interested to hear what you find when you drop the LCAs. Re-greasing is definitely on my maintenance list going forward, the OEM cams are a lot of $$ for what they are. Thanks again!