Jealousy or high miles?

J

JamesDean91

New member
Not sure if anyone read my thread but needing some help here, yesterday did a 6 hour trek to go buy a 02 4runner for the fiancé so i can have mine back (she's been driving it the past 6 months) anyways on the way back the steering stated popping and hard to turn left.
Get back to the house at 11pm crawl under to expect the worse and there is fluid all over my rack and the driver lower ball joint has grease coming out of it. So i jack it up and both lower ball joints have play. Driver had about a half inch passenger about an 8th. I'm not to surprised because my truck just hit 305k YAY!

So what i need from the fellow t4r members is a nudge in the right direction on what is the best lowrr ball joints(oem,moog,upgrade to tacoma?) And where a good place to buy a steering rack would be and if it comes with inner/outer tierod ends or not.
Thinking about upgrading my upper control arm also since I'll be under there not sure on that though as upper ball joints might fit the bill better.
 
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JamesDean91 said:
Not sure if anyone read my thread but needing some help here, yesterday did a 6 hour trek to go buy a 02 4runner for the fiancé so i can have mine back (she's been driving it the past 6 months) anyways on the way back the steering stated popping and hard to turn left.
Get back to the house at 11pm crawl under to expect the worse and there is fluid all over my rack and the driver lower ball joint has grease coming out of it. So i jack it up and both lower ball joints have play. Driver had about a half inch passenger about an 8th. I'm not to surprised because my truck just hit 305k YAY!

So what i need from the fellow t4r members is a nudge in the right direction on what is the best lowrr ball joints(oem,moog,upgrade to tacoma?) And where a good place to buy a steering rack would be and if it comes with inner/outer tierod ends or not.
Thinking about upgrading my upper control arm also since I'll be under there not sure on that though as upper ball joints might fit the bill better.
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LBJ always oem, buddy just moogs fail after 10K :/
 
toyota OE only on the LBJs, rockauto for the rack, and if you are gonna do the UBJs go ahead and get the LR UCAs. that way you get new bushings and new ball joints for about the same price. id also recomend replacing all the bushings in the LCAs sense you will have the rack out and its more than past time to do those.
 
YES, OEM! I put Moog in mine about 2 months before a 3,600 mile trip thinking I would be ok, and read a horror story and decided to change mine before the trip.

When I took them off, one was floppin around like a wet noodle, the other was almost unmovable and was grinding HARD. This was after about 1,000 miles in less than a month.

OEM for all 4
 
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Alright so my front end list is looking like new rack(rock auto) OEM lbj, lr upper control, lower control bushings, and rack bushings(Polly?) Anything else I should look at in the front end? Not going to be rocking ifs much longer was hoping the end of winter to start the sas
 
JamesDean91 said:
Alright so my front end list is looking like new rack(rock auto) OEM lbj, lr upper control, lower control bushings, and rack bushings(Polly?) Anything else I should look at in the front end? Not going to be rocking ifs much longer was hoping the end of winter to start the sas
Click to expand...

If you're planning a SAS I'd just do the necessities then. OEM LBJ's and the cheapest rack you can find. Everything else can be addressed while the front end is torn apart for the conversion.
 
OEM OEM and OEM. The rack is the most expensive but OEM is still best. DONT GO with the rack from www.toyotasteering.com. Mine came with shot ITRE's right out of the box and they would never answer phone, emails or messages to get replacements. To this day they have never contacted me and I tried for over a month on phone, email and leaving messages.
 
the kid said:
toyota OE only on the LBJs, rockauto for the rack, and if you are gonna do the UBJs go ahead and get the LR UCAs. that way you get new bushings and new ball joints for about the same price. id also recomend replacing all the bushings in the LCAs sense you will have the rack out and its more than past time to do those.
Click to expand...

New OEM upper ball joints come with all you need to replace them and are like $40 each.
 
BlackCat914 said:
If you're planning a SAS I'd just do the necessities then. OEM LBJ's and the cheapest rack you can find. Everything else can be addressed while the front end is torn apart for the conversion.
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Well I'd trend to agree with you for the most part however since we just picked the 02 up that will eventually need stuff also and if half my stuff comes of brand new still or upgraded like the lr uca it can be put on her runner.
 
JayRolla said:
New OEM upper ball joints come with all you need to replace them and are like $40 each.
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Agree with this. Not sure how you (the kid) are pricing out your UBJ's... They are not very expensive (Camelback - $33 per)... those UCA's are like $400+.
 
The labor involved with pulling them and installing them... Your less than $100 away from doing the install yourself with much better parts... Go price it out. You can get a set of LR UCAs for less than $450. So new OE UBJs are $80, then new bushings for the UCAs and then the labor to pull them and have everything removed and reinstalled... Yeah its basically the same cost
 
JamesDean91 said:
Alright so my front end list is looking like new rack(rock auto) OEM lbj, lr upper control, lower control bushings, and rack bushings(Polly?) Anything else I should look at in the front end? Not going to be rocking ifs much longer was hoping the end of winter to start the sas
Click to expand...

Only other thing I see commonly wear out is the bushing around the passenger side of the rack. I'd shake it down and see if it's wiggling in there.
 
JayRolla said:
New OEM upper ball joints come with all you need to replace them and are like $40 each.
Click to expand...

the upper ball joints come with a press? they come with the bushings that go in the ends of the stock upper control arm? last time i checked they didnt... at 300k mi the bushings need to be replaced all the way around, either from the miles(even if it was hwy its whole life), or the age of them. rubber dries out and will crack and start breaking down. the LR arms come with poly bushings too btw. when you add it up the cost actually becomes reasonable to upgrade.
 
the kid said:
the upper ball joints come with a press? they come with the bushings that go in the ends of the stock upper control arm? last time i checked they didnt... at 300k mi the bushings need to be replaced all the way around, either from the miles(even if it was hwy its whole life), or the age of them. rubber dries out and will crack and start breaking down. the LR arms come with poly bushings too btw. when you add it up the cost actually becomes reasonable to upgrade.
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Well me personally i have access to 4 different presses at my shop lol but i totally agree if i was to pay someone it would be around 100 a hour probably 4 hour book time so that alone is 400 there. Plus the cost of all the parts.
 
JamesDean91 said:
Well me personally i have access to 4 different presses at my shop lol but i totally agree if i was to pay someone it would be around 100 a hour probably 4 hour book time so that alone is 400 there. Plus the cost of all the parts.
Click to expand...

well here is how i look at it... you have to remove the arm one way or another(especially if you are replacing the outter bushings which imo you need to), so the old arm is out, then you have to drive out the old bushings, and drive in the new ones, then you have to press out the UBJ and press in the new one(who knows the bushing may need to be pressed in as well, i honestly dont know cause ive never had one apart). then you will need to reinstall the arms... that process will take about one hour per side if you know what you are doing, if you are just swapping the arms one for one with the new arms it will be about 1/4 that time. and you wont need to buy all the parts.

you can get LR arms for $400 per set, thats $200 a side, including busings and ball joint(no pressing needed btw)

getting a replacement OE UBJ is $33+sh each lets call it $80 and be generous on the savings, the bushings are $25 so lets call that $55 shipped($160 if you want poly bushings) so thats $135($295 with poly) in parts and most people will still have to pay a shop to press them out and in... so yeah the LR arms are only about $100 more -and thats just in parts, if you account for the pess work and labor involved the LR arms are actually cheaper than going stock.

my math works when you break it down folks
 
Alright so after work today i crawled under it again to see what was going on with my rack, I'm not 100 percent sure its shot. It is leaking fluid out of the top half where the rag joint comes in, not sure if there is a seal rebuild kit for that half or not. Have a little seepage out of the passenger boot also so if i can fix those 2 things and upgrade the guide inside under 250 bucks i think I'd be ahead of the game.

And I've been trying to find info on the Tacoma lower ball joints is it worth the bigger outer tierod ends and stuff? I mean if i can save my rack buy new oem inner/outer tacoma tierod ends and lower balljoints it would be a small upgrade.

Trying to get a parts list going and price, seeing as i just blew my savings buying the fiancé a new truck i now have to pull a small loan out lol.
 
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Don't waste your time with the Tacoma ball joints, the ball and socket are the same size. The turn stops are the main difference and Tacoma ones limit turning so the 4runner ones actually better
 
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