Freshining up the front end, new rack and new bushings and more...

[the great him]

so been having this issue for a while now, its only getting worse(duh) and so time to address it. my front end is lose, i know my steering rack is lose and leaking so thats gonna get replaced probably with a safari ltd one, and poly bushings as i already have that kit ready to go. the other issues i am seeing is a significant pull to the right under braking, other than that the truck drives strait as an arrow. and lastly les schwab Fed up my tundra 5100s, they over extended them when i had them raise and aline the front -i told the guy to go to the 3rd pertch, he went to the 4th, now both struts are leaking and it is starting to bounce over bumps and dips in the road... so basically the whole front is coming out.

my question to you guys who have the experience doing this and have done it in the past, what bushings should i use, should i go poly all around on everything, or should i just use stock OE stuff, or get some moog, or beck arnley... i was also thinking about just buying a set of new LCA or lower A arms off of ebay already loaded for like another $10 than the cost of the bushings them selves, and then that would allow me the time to replaces the bushings in my current ones as well as beef them up, give them a little more stiffening and armor as i have the time.. what imput do you have on the parts

i currently have some poly bushings for my sway bar, and i hate them, they squeak and creak like crazy and it is annoying. im thinking about going back to just the OE bushings so i dont get funny looks from people in parking lots when i go over speed bumps... do the poly bushings in the rack make the same noises or poly bushings in the UCA/LCAs?

 

[MojaveMadMan]

I think you are doing the right thing! Are you looking at all the ball joints and steering rod ends too? Not sure what the budget, but it would save you a ton of head ache and time to just do a full job while you are already all the way apart.

While I don't have experience with the brands of bushings you mentioned, I have used alot of poly and delrien bushings. I really suggest going OE from Toyota or OE replacement from Napa. Napa has great parts and their ball joints are usually better than factory from my experience on a few different kids of vehicles. With poly and delrien you get a ton of noise, the squeaky noise will be load after the greese dries, plus they are a stuffer material so you will actually feel a few more road vibrations. With OE you have no noise and a smoth ride. I would save the poly or anything else for an off-road only rig.

Now poly on the steering rack is different. Because it is not a pivot and in theory nothing should be moving, you want the harder rubber to lock that thing in there. I would say use them 100%. Discliamer, I have not used them personally, but plan to on my next build.

For the lowers, for the $10 it costs to get the whole set, it might be worth doing as you may spend more than $10 pressing old bushings in and out if they are being a pain in the ass. The one note, is that the bushings used in the ebay arms will probably be cheap ones, so I would stick with the plan of replacing them in a medium amount of time with your original beefed up arms with good Toyota or Napa bushings. As far as beefing them up, this is something I want to do as well. I had a 1st Gen Tacoma I did a mid travel front on and I always wanted to take the arms off, weld on arm skids, gusset the shock tabs, and beef up part of the arm so I could run a short hydrolic bump stop on the front. I definetly want to do this on my 3rd gen build I have coming up. Another idea, is have your arms beefed up and just put them back on. The fab work shouldn't take long if you have all the metal parts ready to weld on ahead of time. You or a welding shop can get them welded in under an hour, put on some rattle can, and re-install, saving yourself the hastle of putting them back on later...

 

[cdrewferd]

Where are you finding bushings for the lower control arms? I wanted to do this as well, but the stock bushings wouldn't come out due to the metal washer on both sides.

 

[JayRolla]

Poly on the rack is good, no sounds in my rig but its almost too stiff. One mm movement of the steering wheel and its feeding too the tires, makes driiving a PITA sometimes but got used too it. Stock bushings give a little like they where desiged too do.

Have fun doing the work. I just did front rack, tie rods, ball joints upper and lower, springs, shocks, pretty much entire front. One thing to do is when installing the new rack make sure you center it. Manually spin the rack till its all the way turned, then go back lock to lock counting how many full rotations, I would do it a few times till you get a perfect count, then split that number in half and spin it that many times from lock till its perfectly centered. If you dont do this it will brake the steering lock and cause a lot more work than needed.

GOOD LUCK!

 

[the great him]

good point on the new rack and finding dead center...

i have been just looking on Ebay for them just to get a feel for cost ect.

the bushings need to be pressed out or burned out if you want to take the time and have a small propane torch at home and dont mind spending a few hours doing this...

i am thinking just buying the complete LCAs and then doing mine over the course of the summer -putting new toyota oe bushings in, and adding some beef to the factory LCAs while i have them off and appart.

with the new steering rack i will be doing the outer tirerod ends as well, but not the LBJs as i just did those last year or the year before, anyhow only like 30k miles on them so they should be fine, if i dont do the LR UCAs at this time, then i will deff be changing out the UBJs with toyota oe as well. im just tired of this thing driving like shit and wandering all over the place and the amount of bump steer it has from worn out bushings and play in the tie rod ends and rack

 

[JayRolla]

good point on the new rack and finding dead center...

i have been just looking on Ebay for them just to get a feel for cost ect.

the bushings need to be pressed out or burned out if you want to take the time and have a small propane torch at home and dont mind spending a few hours doing this...

i am thinking just buying the complete LCAs and then doing mine over the course of the summer -putting new toyota oe bushings in, and adding some beef to the factory LCAs while i have them off and appart.

with the new steering rack i will be doing the outer tirerod ends as well, but not the LBJs as i just did those last year or the year before, anyhow only like 30k miles on them so they should be fine, if i dont do the LR UCAs at this time, then i will deff be changing out the UBJs with toyota oe as well. im just tired of this thing driving like shit and wandering all over the place and the amount of bump steer it has from worn out bushings and play in the tie rod ends and rack

I replaced everything in the front with OEM parts and still am not happy with how it drives. The 33" muds like to wander all over and pulls itself into the streets groves and ruts. When hitting bumps it likes to bounce the steering. Had my brother and dad drive it without saying anything and they said it felt fine when I asked them how it drove. I also pull hard too the right, new brake lines, rotors, bads, rear pads, thinking I have a caliper thats not grabbing like it should. Anyways after hours of work and money I have not seen a huge improvement. But I'm also comparing to my talons eclipses and my wifes expedition that I drive a lot.

 

[the great him]

the safari ltd rack is just under $500 so its gonna be a wee bit spendy but i think it will be worth it as its stronger than the factory unit and not a rebuilt.

as far as the ride being rough and getting tossed around because of the groves in the road, yeah i understand that is going to happen, but i have an older 85 pickup that has a lift and 33" muds on it and it drives almost as good, and thats a solid axle truck... i feel this runner should drive a lot better than it does, and i think it needs a "freshening up" up front

 

[apgiik]

FYI--Just replaced my Steering Rack/Sway Bar/End Link bushings with Energy Suspension & Low-Range Off Road Polyurethane bushings and the front end of My 4Runner feels Brand New!! I had noticeable vibration at 70mph and now that is completely gone. Thanks to all the folks on this site for posting great technical info and experience-backed approaches to solving 4Runner issues!!

 

[NachoPitt]

so been having this issue for a while now, its only getting worse(duh) and so time to address it. my front end is lose, i know my steering rack is lose and leaking so thats gonna get replaced probably with a safari ltd one, and poly bushings as i already have that kit ready to go. the other issues i am seeing is a significant pull to the right under braking, other than that the truck drives strait as an arrow. and lastly les schwab Fed up my tundra 5100s, they over extended them when i had them raise and aline the front -i told the guy to go to the 3rd pertch, he went to the 4th, now both struts are leaking and it is starting to bounce over bumps and dips in the road... so basically the whole front is coming out.

my question to you guys who have the experience doing this and have done it in the past, what bushings should i use, should i go poly all around on everything, or should i just use stock OE stuff, or get some moog, or beck arnley... i was also thinking about just buying a set of new LCA or lower A arms off of ebay already loaded for like another $10 than the cost of the bushings them selves, and then that would allow me the time to replaces the bushings in my current ones as well as beef them up, give them a little more stiffening and armor as i have the time.. what imput do you have on the parts

i currently have some poly bushings for my sway bar, and i hate them, they squeak and creak like crazy and it is annoying. im thinking about going back to just the OE bushings so i dont get funny looks from people in parking lots when i go over speed bumps... do the poly bushings in the rack make the same noises or poly bushings in the UCA/LCAs?

I am going through this same in deciding what to do with my UCA and LCA. BFAD replaced his LCAs with Doorman arms from Amazon (about $70 a piece) on his 97 and seems to be pretty happy with them. They came with bushings, ready to go. I would consider those and call it a day.

I have considered poly but I don't care for the noise either. I have the poly steering rack bushings and they are great. My poly swaybar bushings are awful and didn't last very long on my rig (I also get a little bit more articulation out of the front with the rubber back on).