Is a broken Upper control arm/link a common occurance?

[scoobydann]

Background on the truck...absolutely babied (02 sport)from 01-09 with the occasional desert back road. from 03/09-present little more aggressive but not the limit.

desert southwest its whole life (just took off running boards and after the initial torque to take off the bolt everything came off with fingers.)

pretty OCD with dirt on the undercarrage (whole life)

stock everything.

Ive been hearing a "pop" on the occasional bump and i was on a mission to find it.....

driver side upper

gonna buld my own. anything else i should upgrade while im down there?

 

[scoobydann]

Where are you from? My truck is from the southwest as well and the links look fine. I would guess that yours is just a defective part. I have all four links laying in my shed if you need them. I just removed them this week for my sas and rear leaf conversion.

El Paso, Tx I am thinking a defect as well. looks like it broke at the weld for that little bracket. looks old too. i might take you up on the offer. im going to look around for the bushings and build my own but should just put a factory one to get around. How much do you want for yours?

 

[scoobydann]

emal sent

thanks.

anyone else have this problem.....why are the links so small??

 

[Pikeman]

Cause 4 Runners are Soccer Mom mobiles and not off-road trucks....Ok now that some people are pissed and dont realize I was joking.

The Upper control links in the back can be small because they dont actually take much force/load. They are mainly there for tortional forces on the axle (read axle wrap). However that being said even the standard lower links are small diameter. I wheel mine pretty good and sometimes wonder if I should upgrade to thicker links, but have not had any issues so far. I have also wondered that with the Uppers being so small why the only after market links available are lower ones.

 

[scoobydann]

Those things are rediculously small, looks like mabye 1/2" solid rod. I have some 1" .120 wall laying around but i cant seem to find the busings. I havent actually looked real hard but like stated above all i can find is the lowers.