Rebuilding front suspension - Recommended steps?

J

JohnOfTheJungle

Member
***UPDATE*** I did the job the weekend of 5/12. It took me from 11pm Friday night to 12am Sunday night working my gf's parent's garage in NJ. My notes on the job are at the bottom of the post.


Hey guys - I'm new in town, bought a 97 Limited e-locker with 166k a few weeks ago. Timing belt, water pump, and new radiator were done 10k miles ago. I just flushed the tranny fluid last night and it was dark brown, but I didn't see signs of pink milkshake.

I was planning on refreshing the suspension and doing a 2" lift in a few months because I could tell it was riding rough. Those plans got accelerated when it didn't pass inspection last week. The place I took it to put it up on a lift and checked the front suspension - they said that the LCA bushings are toast, the drivers side front shock is leaking, and he mentioned something about "links" (which might be sway bar links). I saw this all myself as well, so I don't think he's trying to scam me.

Anyway, the bill would have been $800 for him to buy 2 new LCAs and slap em in, and to do a few other little things.

I've decided I'm going to take this opp to do a more complete front end refresh myself and do it right the first time. I'm on a very tight budget, but I managed to get all of the below for $990 shipped. Here's my plan (I've already bought the parts):

  • LCA bushings (2) - Energy Suspension
  • Lower Ball Joint (2) - Toyota OEM
  • Outer Tie Rod Ends (2) - Toyota OEM
  • Front Sway Bar Bushings - Energy Suspension
  • Rack & Pinion Bushings - Energy Suspension
  • Lower Ball Joint (2) - Toyota OEM
  • Front Shocks (2) - Bilstein 4600
  • Front Springs (2) - 99 Springs (AC Delco)
  • Rear Shocks (2) - Bilstein 5100
  • Rear Springs (2) - OME906
  • Tie Rod & Pitman Arm Puller
  • Loctite - Blue & Red
  • Anti-Seize compound
  • Energy Suspension Assembly Lube
  • PBlaster

I have not bought Sway bar links.

For tools - I've got wrenches, sockets, grinder, vice (all in a small workshop) but don't have a press, air compressor/air tools, or a large floor jack. I'll also be working on the street in Brooklyn. All of that is less than ideal, but I plan to use methods that hopefully don't need special tools.

While I've seen write-ups for most of these things, I don't think I've seen someone tackle them all together in a weekend.

Here are my plans for each individual thing in order:



What I would LOVE you guys' help with is:

  • Am I missing anything that it would be stupid for me not to replace since I'll have everything else out?
  • Am I missing critical parts that will not allow me to complete these jobs? Should I order the eccentrics & cam bolts for the LCA expecting they'll be rusted in place?
  • Is there a certain order that I should do these things to save myself a ton of grief?
  • Are there any tools or knick-knacks that I need to make any of this a lot easier? I've got the grease, penetrating spray, torch (although I don't want to light my truck on fire), etc.
  • If I can't finish this all by Sunday night what are the things I can just slap back on and finish at a later date? I've already got the rear shocks/springs as my lowest priority.

additional resources:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/diy-lca-bushing-replacement-2005-tacoma-4x4.176250/
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/su...oint-replacement-2005-tacoma.html#post3691540
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmaZNBp1gZM

additional tools (edited to add in based on advice below)

  • ratchet straps
  • torque wrench
  • 2lb sledge
  • heat gun
  • vise grips
  • 24mm socket (for LBJ castle nut)
  • 22mm socket (LCA cam bolts)
  • 19mm wrench (LCA cam bolts)
  • breaker bar
  • wood blocks
  • pry bar
  • vice

The car has to be mobile by Sunday night so I don't get parking tickets. Starting 6pm Friday night the race is on! Appreciate any advice.




***UPDATE*** - here are my notes from the completed job:

Wanted to post a quick update that I did the job solo this weekend!

Since it was storming all weekend in NYC I took the car out to my gf's parent's house in NJ and had the luxury of working in a garage.

Even with the garage, I still had to bring all of my tools out since they literally don't even have a hammer. My Milwaukee 18v Impact Wrench saved my ass, but the job still took me from 11pm Friday night until 12am Sunday night.

I got super lucky that 3 of the 4 cam bolts/sleeves were not seized, but I did have to cut out one cam sleeve. Luckily I had bought 1 extra set from SPC, so I put that one in.

The bottle jack + torch trick on to remove the old LCA bushings was amazing. I HIGHLY recommend anyone doing this job in the future to use that method. I'd say it took me 20 minutes to get all of the old bushings out of the LCAs. Also GREAT recommendation on the Whiteline LCA bushings - I ended up buying those and using them instead of the ES ones. I don't know if I could have handled trying to clean up the LCAs to re-use the old parts for the ES bushings.

Another MVP for the job was my Pittman arm puller, which I used to pull the ball joints, out tie rod ends, and a couple of old bushings from the steering rack (that middle bushing that goes with the welded nut was a real b***h). It did screw up the boots on the outer tie rod ends, so if you're planning to reuse your tie rod ends then you should use a tie rod end puller which is more narrow and fits better behind the brake rotor assembly.

There were lots of little things along the way that slowed me down. For example one of the rear control arm mounting plates was bent up, and I didn't realize it until I spent an hour trying to jam the control arm up there along with the washers. Ended up having to hammer both the driver and passenger sides out with a sledge to make room. I'm guessing that as the old boots deteriorated the alignment shops kept tightening the cam bolts down tighter, causing the sides to bend in.

In the end I replaced:
Steering rack bushings
LCA bushings
1 cam bolt, re-used the others. Covered all cam sleeves in anti-seize
new outer tie rod ends
new sway bar end links

Because I indexed my cam plates and my tie rod ends I was able to drive 1 hr back to the city at 2am at 60 mph without feeling too unsafe. Will need to get an alignment though as one of the wheels has too much toe in and I think the camber is a little bit off.

I did not get to the front shocks, partially because the top nut is pretty much completely stripped and I can't fit my impact up there. I honestly don't know if I'm up for doing my shocks now, I might just bail on it and take it to a shop for that one.

One more thing to note - the passenger side LBJ had been replaced with a Moog (I think the vehicle had been in an accident in the past). After removing both the Moog and the driver side OEM I could feel that the Moog was dry and grinding, borderline seized, although the boot itself looked fine. The OEM has not easy to move around either but felt way better than the Moog. I'm guessing the Moog would have failed before too long.
 
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Here's a pic
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I would change the LCA bushings to Whiteline bushings instead. Less work and great performance. Other than that everything else seems like a good idea


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I would say the absolute hardest thing you're going to tackle is going to be the LCA bushings. There's a good amount of threads about how difficult they are to remove so I'd allocate the most time to them. ball joints are probably the next most difficult, but as long as you follow the threads you'll be fine, it'll probably take about 2 hours to do them. Replace the outer tie rods at the same time as the ball joints since they have to come off at the same time. The hardest part of them is loosening them. When loosening them out some paint on the threads so that your alignment will be fairly close. Shocks are easy, link bushings are easy. I've never done the rack bushings but I know there are threads about them.


The biggest thing is make sure you have all the exact tools you need to do the job if you're trying to get this done in that time frame. Make sure you know where they are and have them organized. Make sure you also have a torque wrench and know the torqu specs required. Good luck on the install!
 
Tinigunner11 said:
I would say the absolute hardest thing you're going to tackle is going to be the LCA bushings. There's a good amount of threads about how difficult they are to remove so I'd allocate the most time to them. ball joints are probably the next most difficult, but as long as you follow the threads you'll be fine, it'll probably take about 2 hours to do them. Replace the outer tie rods at the same time as the ball joints since they have to come off at the same time. The hardest part of them is loosening them. When loosening them out some paint on the threads so that your alignment will be fairly close. Shocks are easy, link bushings are easy. I've never done the rack bushings but I know there are threads about them.


The biggest thing is make sure you have all the exact tools you need to do the job if you're trying to get this done in that time frame. Make sure you know where they are and have them organized. Make sure you also have a torque wrench and know the torqu specs required. Good luck on the install!
Click to expand...

Tinigunner's right, LCA bushings will definitely be the hardest, and since you'll need to pull the steering rack to do them, the LCA and rack bushings job can be treated as one big job. I think this will be the vast majority of your time sink.

I'd recommend picking up some ratchet straps as well for wrestling the rack back into place. A strong C-clamp and some large sockets will be required for both the rack and LCA bushings , if I remember correctly.

A 2lb sledge would come in handy for the LBJs if you don't have one of them fancy ball joint separators.

As for things you can just slap back on/not worry about - sway bar end links are probably the only things you're changing that aren't integral to the safety or stability of the car. Everything else would need to be reconnected properly to safely drive it away.

Good luck! This is definitely something I'd rather undertake in a driveway or a garage than on the streets of Brooklyn. Depending on your skillset, this is doable in the time frame you have allotted, but as my girlfriend knows, it's always a good idea to take my labor estimates and multiply them by 2x to account for the hiccups you inevitably run into working on a 15+ yr old car.
 
If you're doing lower control arm bushings and lower ball joints, you may consider replacing the whole lower control arm as one unit. I believe Toyota sells a new lower control arm including bushings and ball joint. I don't have part number or costs handy but this is the option I'll investigate when the time comes for me. This way you have OEM bushings without the hassle of pressing out the old ones and a Toyota installed lower ball joint. If you're doing the work yourself there is value in having those pieces already put together for you.
 
Good advice all around.

I've got a torque wrench and some ratchet straps, will make sure I gather those up.

On the Whitelines - looks like I should have done a little more research, I assumed they were basically the same as ES, didn't realize they included the metal sleeves. At this point I can't get the Whitelines in until next week unless I pay an extra $25+ for overnight shipping so I'm going to stick with ES and go the hard way.

On buying OEM LCA+balljoint, I didn't realize they sold them together as a set. I did talk to the guy at Cameback on the phone and he didn't mention that. For pricing, I'm seeing about $180 for this part, and it appears to be just for the LCA - not including the ball joint:

https://toyotaparts.bochtoyotasouth...yJnk9MTk5NyZ0PWxpbWl0ZWQmZT0zLTRsLXY2LWdhcw==

If it really comes down to it I could delay the project until the following weekend and see about getting a hold of the combination LCA+balljoint (if they really only cost $180 each). At that time I could also order Whitelines and not have to pay express shipping.
 
Since you are in the rust belt I'd go arouñd and crack/loosen as many bolts as you can without taking the parts off to keep it usable. You can waste a huge amount of time doing that. Unless you get the new Otr I believe it is, you won't get a new upper castle nut for the lbj so you will need to reuse the existing one. If the cotter pin is rusted in it will be really time consuming to get it out without wrecking the castle nut.
 
Good tip there on the rusted fasteners. I already saved myself an hour by taking off the front skid plate the other night when I did my transmission flush. PBlaster and these things (which look pretty cheesy) really helped save my ass: https://www.pepboys.com/product/details/1033603/01072

The other thing I'm going to do after reading more is hit as many bolts as I can with PBlaster the night before just to give it some time to loosen up.

My new LBJs and outer tie rod ends arrived last night and I was checking them out. I can't remember which item it was, but one of them came with new castle nuts and cotter pins, so I think I'm good there.

edit - started watching this guy's video...which is extremely in-depth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmaZNBp1gZM turns out there is a castle nut for both tie rod and LBJ so likely I will need to preserve the one that's on the truck now.
 
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Wanted to post a quick update that I did the job solo this weekend!

Since it was storming all weekend in NYC I took the car out to my gf's parent's house in NJ and had the luxury of working in a garage.

Even with the garage, I still had to bring all of my tools out since they literally don't even have a hammer. My Milwaukee 18v Impact Wrench saved my ass, but the job still took me from 11pm Friday night until 12am Sunday night.

I got super lucky that 3 of the 4 cam bolts/sleeves were not seized, but I did have to cut out one cam sleeve. Luckily I had bought 1 extra set from SPC, so I put that one in.

The bottle jack + torch trick on to remove the old LCA bushings was amazing. I HIGHLY recommend anyone doing this job in the future to use that method. I'd say it took me 20 minutes to get all of the old bushings out of the LCAs. Also GREAT recommendation on the Whiteline LCA bushings - I ended up buying those and using them instead of the ES ones. I don't know if I could have handled trying to clean up the LCAs to re-use the old parts of the ES bushings.

Another MVP for the job was my Pittman arm puller, which I used to pull the ball joints, out tie rod ends, and a couple of old bushings from the steering rack (that middle bushing that goes with the welded nut was a real b***h). It did screw up the boots on the outer tie rod ends, so if you're planning to reuse your tie rod ends then you should use a tie rod end puller which is more narrow and fits better behind the brake rotor assembly.

There were lots of little things along the way that slowed me down. For example one of the rear control arm mounting plates was bent up, and I didn't realize it until I spent an hour trying to jam the control arm up there along with the washers. Ended up having to hammer both the driver and passenger sides out with a sledge to make room. I'm guessing that as the old boots deteriorated the alignment shops kept tightening the cam bolts down tighter, causing the sides to bend in.

In the end I replaced:

  1. Steering rack bushings
  2. LCA bushings
  3. 1 cam bolt, re-used the others. Covered all cam sleeves in anti-seize
  4. new outer tie rod ends
  5. new sway bar end links

Because I indexed my cam plates and my tie rod ends I was able to drive 1 hr back to the city at 2am at 60 mph without feeling too unsafe. Will need to get an alignment though as one of the wheels has too much toe in and I think the camber is a little bit off.

I did not get to the front shocks, partially because the top nut is pretty much completely stripped and I can't fit my impact up there. I honestly don't know if I'm up for doing my shocks now, I might just bail on it and take it to a shop for that one.

One more thing to note - the passenger side LBJ had been replaced with a Moog (I think the vehicle had been in an accident in the past). After removing both the Moog and the driver side OEM I could feel that the Moog was dry and grinding, borderline seized, although the boot itself looked fine. The OEM has not easy to move around either but felt way better than the Moog. I'm guessing the Moog would have failed before too long.

I'll post a few pics of the process later, but wanted to say thanks for the advice, it was super helpful, and this forum was an INCREDIBLE resource for the job. Literally my Haynes service manual was worthless in comparison.
 
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For the work you're planning on doing, [MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] have lots of videos for you to consult to hopefully make the work easier for you to do. Like somebody already suggested, use Whiteline bushings for the LCAs. You'll regret all the extra BS you'll need to do to use Energy Suspension bushings. In addition to the videos below, check out our YouTube channel for more helpful videos for our 3rd Gen rigs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9EMiD9KPy61kJ6hdXcbjxA


Here's the videos:

Basic Lift Video:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0HJx6HH2yno?list=PLPMpPriBUyJDltxfqbrYHUmrKeRrLeLXM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

A More Complet Lift Video
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yXjioXyZa_M?list=PLPMpPriBUyJDltxfqbrYHUmrKeRrLeLXM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Lower Control Arm Bushing Replacement The cam adjusters on our rigs are known to get rusted in place inside the sleeve of the bushing. If this happens and you can't pound it out, you'll have to cut the cam adjuster out with a reciprocating saw and some good blades. Diablo Demon Carbide Tipped blades are suppose to be the shit for quick painless cutting. You have to cut on each side of the bushing to free the arm from the frame.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kmaZNBp1gZM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Lower Balljoint Replacement
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bfLvtEnX9qk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Steering Rack and Front Sway Bar Bushing Replacement
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YywcR0E9bM4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Thanks for the links - I got most of that done this weekend, but I think those will be a super helpful resource for people that are researching this in the future.

I will update my original post to say that I finished the job.

And yes, the Whiteline bushings are a MUST in my opinion. No way I would have had the will to do what needed to be done for the ES bushings.
 
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