Ball Joints

[Dous]

Here's the parts that arrived from shoptrd.com today via FedEx. I weighed the ball joints on a cheap floor scale and it says they weigh about 5 lbs. each.

What are these to rings sticking up in the picture?

No comparison shots yet. If someone who knows what 4runner BJs/outer tie rods look like please comment on the looks of these Tacoma's.

They are supposed to do that, it helps you get it in the hole anyways!
:girl:

 

[Singtoe]

well from the looks of it it's a sleeve to guide the bolt into place the chamfer on top of the sleeve is to help locate and position the ball joint when assembling, as far as our stock 4runners having those, i don't think so, not from my memory.....but my memory is ****, a few other have done this before so that shouldn't be an issue otherwise they would have mentioned having to cut off the sleeves or open up the hole in the hub assy..so chances are your good, and really it would only take about 5mins to double check that, the lower ball joint is held there by 4 bolts that should come right off

4runners have the centering sleeves so you are good to go.

 

[bikerjosh]

ha, sorry douche move on my part, sorry!

yeah i just replaced my tre's about 5 months ago but figure $60 for some slightly beefier ones and being able to step up to the slightly stronger taco ball joints is worth it in the long run.....

No worries, Singtoe came up with the idea I was just the first one to chance it. I've been off the boards for about a week while camping, driving 4runner, hiking and riding the moto in Death Valley. Lot's ,more driving offroad with the Tacoma LBJs and out TREs no issues.
Josh

 

[PitbullRescuer]

I'll be installing mine on Friday. :grin

 

[Trub]

subscribing

 

[ChildrenOfBodom]

Wish my ball joints weren't so new...

Definitely on the list!

 

[madbomber08]

I didn't have a camera available on the day I put them in so I didn't get any comparison shots. I'll take some pics of them on the truck and then some pics of the old ones. Hopefully you all get a better idea of how beef these things really are.

 

[theizzardking]

yeah i finished mine the other day, and when i was in there i smacked the stud of the ball joint a few times with a dead blow to see if i was getting any movement in there, and decided that might not be a good idea in general, it just looks like it's really bad for the inner tie rod end ......so this looked better to me

this made the job easier as well for both pieces...

do what you want and don't get me wrong the bfh is one of my favorite weapons i just didn't feel comfortable using it here, what do you guys think? it really looked as if it was leveraging down on the inner tie rod end with each strike..

somebody should do a proper write up the one out there is kind of weak, it works, but could be a little more detailed....

 

[LittleCaesar]

Prop up the LCA with a jack. It makes life 10x easier.

Also, leave the 4 bolts in the knuckle until after the LBJ is pressed out.

 

[theizzardking]

Prop up the LCA with a jack. It makes life 10x easier.

Also, leave the 4 bolts in the knuckle until after the LBJ is pressed out.

i had it propped up on a jack, removed the jack to get more room to work with and same with the knuckle then used the jack to reassemble, i don't really know how this could have been 10x's easier...went like cake....once i quit screwing around with a stupid hammer and got the right tool for the job it only took maybe 15-30 mins to do the other side....but hey that's me and like i said, that's just how i did it, my only concern was that you may be damaging the innner tie rod when you are hitting that end out, if not then no bother and do it how the write up says or however it suits you, merely a suggestion =-)

 

[LittleCaesar]

Ahh, now I see what you did.

A BFH in my mind should be used during car repair only after all other avenues have been exhausted, even though the inner tie rod would more than likely be fine in using it.

 

[Singtoe]

Ahh, now I see what you did.

A BFH in my mind should be used during car repair only after all other avenues have been exhausted, even though the inner tie rod would more than likely be fine in using it.

BFH is the first tool I use when it comes to removing ball joints and tie rod ends.

Three hits and they are free.

 

[LittleCaesar]

it sounds like I am backing myself into a corner here. Maybe it is the engineer in me that is a little hesitant in using the BFH first.

Good to know the results with the BFH on them TREs and BJs.

I will have to say that tearing down drywall fast is best achieved with an arsenal of BFHs.

 

[maclean216]

yeah i finished mine the other day, and when i was in there i smacked the stud of the ball joint a few times with a dead blow to see if i was getting any movement in there, and decided that might not be a good idea in general, it just looks like it's really bad for the inner tie rod end ......so this looked better to me

this made the job easier as well for both pieces...

do what you want and don't get me wrong the bfh is one of my favorite weapons i just didn't feel comfortable using it here, what do you guys think? it really looked as if it was leveraging down on the inner tie rod end with each strike..

somebody should do a proper write up the one out there is kind of weak, it works, but could be a little more detailed....

I would say press it out so you can keep the used parts as a trail spares. I hammered mine out and basically destroyed the parts in the process.

 

[Singtoe]

Not that i like to toot my own horn but I have never destroyed parts with a BFH (unintentional). I have broke down 100's of cars and have always sold the parts. Nobody wants a knuckle beat to hell let alone pay for it, so the secrete is to shock the joint, not drive it out. Shock it hard enough and it just falls apart.

I have sold many BFH'ed parts and never had a complaint.


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LDsci-izhhc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Singtoe]

Not that i like to toot my own horn but I have never destroyed parts with a BFH (unintentional). I have broke down 100's of cars and have always sold the parts. Nobody wants a knuckle beat to hell let alone pay for it, so the secrete is to shock the joint, not drive it out. Shock it hard enough and it just falls apart.

I have sold many BFH'ed parts and never had a complaint.


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LDsci-izhhc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Link to vdo The Easy Best Way to Separate a Ball Joint Tie Rod End How to - YouTube

 

[Rock Slide]

*subscribed*

Granted mine were replaced years back when the recall came forward, but since having put a 100K miles on my truck since then, I'm considering replacing everything again just for peace of mind.

Nice work on the Tacoma mod.

 

[theizzardking]

Link to vdo

yeah i tried that with a dead blow and i get nervous swinging a big metal hammer like that around my rotors and such, i'm well aware of how shocking it works and it's a great little trick, it just didn't work for me with the dead blow, which i know takes some of the vibes out of the strike and reduced the effectiveness of trying to shock the joint as you call it i even hit it with some pb blaster smacked it a few more times to try and let that stuff work it was down and into the joint and still to no avail...so i went with the gear puller instead of fooling around with it anymore....then again 240k on the og bj's could be a reason as well.....

and to be honest it's probably my daily life spent around precision tooling that's turned me into a big girl about some of this stuff, where even a scratch on some surfaces means thousands in losses having to re make the whole part, i understand 4runners aren't like this for the most part but it's still hard to break from that training and grab a big metal hammer and start whacking things till something comes loose,

like i said in the previous post people are probably best off just following the write up , which for me personally wasn't as easy as shown in the video so i went another way with it and posted it here to give an alternative if that method doesn't work for them ...

good video for those who don't know whats going on and what to do, only if all of these things were linked up with some txt in a single thread somewhere where you could just open a page and have step by step instructions on how to set up and how to do the job, lol

:lookout:

by the by, i noticed a massive improvement in how the truck felt, felt planted again, and i can honestly say now that my suspension is rough as **** and it's not anything else in the system making the up down almost unbearable.

 

[Kung]

So I'm getting ready to take the family on a 1000 mile trip with our 4Runner. It's in pristine shape, and has not been driven hard...but considering the LBJ 'set' is around $160 or so, I assume that I can just buy the Tacoma LBJ's referenced in this thread and replace just them? (Assuming that the TRE isn't flopping around, that is.)

If so, I believe I'll go ahead and pull the trigger on these today and do it next weekend.

 

[theizzardking]

So I'm getting ready to take the family on a 1000 mile trip with our 4Runner. It's in pristine shape, and has not been driven hard...but considering the LBJ 'set' is around $160 or so, I assume that I can just buy the Tacoma LBJ's referenced in this thread and replace just them? (Assuming that the TRE isn't flopping around, that is.)

If so, I believe I'll go ahead and pull the trigger on these today and do it next weekend.

the set is all or nothing, you either have to buy the tacoma outer tie rods ends and tacoma ball joints, or if you just want to buy ball joints for a bit cheaper you have to stick with the stock 4runner ones, the hole at the end of the outter tie rod is a bit bigger to allow the larger bolt on the taco ball joint to sip through.....

and if the tre is flopping around that means you need to replace the inner tie rod end and not nessarily the outter, the outter tie rod ends joint is what connects to the ball joint, to check the outter tre simply grabe the bolt at the end of it and wiggle it around and see if you feel any play, if there's noticeable play replace..i don;t think i could have made that more confusing if i tried....


it goes like this, innner tie rod sits inside your steeering rack, the outter tie rod end screws into the end of the inner tie rod .....the outter tie rod bolts through the ball joint to control the wheels.....

the outter tie rods joint is at the ball joint connection
the inner tie rods joint is inside the steering rack (kind of)

so again to check the otter tre grab the bolt that goes through the ball joint and wiggle

to test the inner tre pull in and out on the outter tre's main shaft if there's play replace.....

the price difference between the stock set up and the taco package is about $30-60 bucks, that said i'm broke as a joke and wasn;t about to do the sweet taco thing because $60 is a weeks worth of food....