New Twist on Lower Ball Joint failure

[Pikeman]

Ok first off let me say I know it is worthless without pics but cant load any on my work computer and it is the only one I have right now. Now onto the new twist.

Coming home from family activities last night the steering started hunting and was really twitchy, then would get difficult. I made it all the way to the turn onto my street. As I was making the left turn onto my street the passenger side LBJ gave out, or did it?

The twist is that all 4 bolts holding the LBJ to the knuckle broke. Three sheared at the knuckle and one sheared the head off and left it like locating stud. Took out the knuckle, brake line, CV, fender and slight bend on passenger side door.

 

[Gonzo113]

That sucks. Glad no one got hurt tho.
All this balljoint talk I think I am going to replace mine. They are tight but who knows when they were last replaced if at all.
Good luck

 

[bike]

Sucks to hear. Every time that thread gets bumped or a new one pops up I cringe a little and hope its not another victim. LBJ's are definitely on the top of my list.

 

[the great him]

it seams to me that this is only happening to guys with lifted trucks... now dont come booing me and telling me that im an idiot or anything like that, cause im not saying dont lift your truck(i plan on lifting my truck) but alls im trying to say, is to the guys out there with stock/non lifted trucks, dont bother. if you have lifted it, or are going to lift the truck, replace them(i would/will do so when i lift the truck). if anyone can show me a truck that this happend to that was stock height then feel free to prove me wrong.

 

[durrell]

I replaced mine but didn't go OEM. They still look really good, but the extreme angles that the lift causes worry me a little bit.

Sucks about your rig.

Edit: the_kid, it seems to be people with lifts PLUS heavy front bumpers. Although I'm sure it has happened to people without the heavy bumper, it seems to be much more common.

 

[J-money$$$]

actually i have heard of those bolts shearing off before. My best guess is that your lbj seized and then caused the bolts to break,

 

[Pikeman]

There are the pictures. Like I said I am just happy I was turning onto my street and doing 10-15 only.

 

[RHeld24]

Holy sh!t! Looks like your sliders protected your passenger door...

x2 on only going 10-15 mph, glad you weren't on the freeway!

 

[Elton H]

this is why ive parked my 4runner tell i can replace them ... the ones ive seen fail soo far have been under 20mph

 

[blcktpgsr]

Holy he!%....That is some scary picture..man I'm glad to hear it didn't end up catastrophic for you. Does the occurrence of ball joint failing happen commonly during low speed runs?..Seems like a very similar circumstance as Smallfry's.

 

[BigFishAllDay]

OUCH! :cry2:

I know you're pretty meticulous with your maintenance Pikeman, do you know how many miles were on those LBJ's, or how long it had been since they were replaced?

Another observation I'll make here, is that for those of us who have sliders, they are proving themselves to have another benefit to add to the list: door protection during the failure of a LBJ! :redbrick:

 

[brian2sun]

That sucks Pikeman. Glad you and your family weren't injured. At least the 4runner can be fixed.

 

[BrianSD_42]

Glad to hear you are ok man!

it seams to me that this is only happening to guys with lifted trucks...

hmmm, my LBJ started to fail a few years ago. I had been lifted for < 1 year.

Luckily for me I was lazy about getting my tires rotated and one day I looked down and 30% of my 6 month old BFGs had worn away on one side. I paid $350 to get LBJ replaced and was back on the road. At the time I was angry but now I realize that was the only way I would have ever known. A lot of guys have this failure with no warning at all.

My advice (but it is your money) - Don't use an aftermarket parts for the LBJ fix. I have seen at least one other thread where the LBJ failed a second time with a 6 month old MOOG part.

Use Toyota part for the fix, saving 20% on parts just isn't worth your life.


:zoom:

 

[Duhockey]

it seams to me that this is only happening to guys with lifted trucks... now dont come booing me and telling me that im an idiot or anything like that, cause im not saying dont lift your truck(i plan on lifting my truck) but alls im trying to say, is to the guys out there with stock/non lifted trucks, dont bother. if you have lifted it, or are going to lift the truck, replace them(i would/will do so when i lift the truck). if anyone can show me a truck that this happend to that was stock height then feel free to prove me wrong.

It has happened with non lifted rigs, make sure to replace them with OME at least every 150k for non lifted. I pushed mine to 180 and felt the steering start to go, replaced them just in time.

 

[BrianSD_42]

as Duhockey implies: correlation != causation

 

[Singtoe]

Did you find the bolt heads near the place of the incident?


If you can, look at the broken bolts and see if all 4 of them look freshly broken. They would be bright silver. If you see any rust or other type of oxidation, it might broke one bought at a time until the final catastrophe.

 

[fightman80]

Alright, so I have a question:

If I've had my truck inspected by a mechanic for upper and lower balljoints, and all was nice and tight.....should I worry about replacing them anyway?

We looked over the entire undercarriage and could only find a front stabilizer bar bushing that needed replacing!

 

[cordrayj1]

Ok first off let me say I know it is worthless without pics but cant load any on my work computer and it is the only one I have right now. Now onto the new twist.

Coming home from family activities last night the steering started hunting and was really twitchy, then would get difficult. I made it all the way to the turn onto my street. As I was making the left turn onto my street the passenger side LBJ gave out, or did it?

The twist is that all 4 bolts holding the LBJ to the knuckle broke. Three sheared at the knuckle and one sheared the head off and left it like locating stud. Took out the knuckle, brake line, CV, fender and slight bend on passenger side door.

THIS SAME EXACT THING HAPPENED TO ME>>>>>>>>>


4 bolts sheared. most likely due to improper reassembly (thats what my mechanic told me when i took to him). At least I am pretty sure thats why it happened to me. there is no other reason that would happen with the high grade bolts used for this application. He told me to make sure that everything is seated correctly before torquing those bolts.

I learned an expensive lesson 2 years ago on this one. . .

 

[steezemcqueen]

I know what i am doing this weekend

 

[98_4runnerSR5]

Just dropped it off at the shop this morning :boxer: