Recommended LBJ and UBJ replacement

[playinthewoods]

Moogs are $21.79 each on Rockauto. You can rent the ball joint press kit from either Autozone or O'Reilly. None of the 3 spacers that come with the kit will work, however. When pressing the old ball joint out, you will need a spacer that's between the 2 larger ones in the rental kit. One spacer in the "14 Piece Master Ball Joint Adapter Set" sold at Harbor Freight $69 fits perfectly. Like someone said above, don't remove the LCA. Use a breaker bar and a pipe as extender, you're in business.

I replaced my CV axles a couple of weeks ago. While I was at it, I replaced the LBJ's and inner/outer tie rods as well.

 

[playinthewoods]

Moogs are $21.79 each on Rockauto. You can rent the ball joint press kit from either Autozone or O'Reilly. None of the 3 spacers that come with the kit will work, however. When pressing the old ball joint out, you will need a spacer that's between the 2 larger ones in the rental kit. One spacer in the "14 Piece Master Ball Joint Adapter Set" sold at Harbor Freight $69 fits perfectly. Like someone said above, don't remove the LCA. Use a breaker bar and a pipe as extender, you're in business.

I replaced my CV axles a couple of weeks ago. While I was at it, I replaced the LBJ's and inner/outer tie rods as well.

And changed out diff & TC fluid and greased all the zerks - why not if the truck was already on jack stands

 

[WXman]

Thanks for the info. That'll save a lot of $$$ and hassle.

 

[ben550]

I noticed loose steering at highway speeds, and started researching. Seems like I need to replace the inner and outer tie rods, but while I'm at it I should replace the LBJ's. Being that I'll need an alignment I might as well rip out the slowly leaking xreas shocks and replace with new shocks/struts oh and by the way since I have it all pulled apart might as well replace the leaking CV Axles...

My list just keeps growing... So much to do, so little time, and not enough $$$... oh well. I guess ill just do one or two at a time.

What would you say should be done first?

 

[Brownfaux]

Just do it all at once. You'll save time/money as it will be much easier. Each one of those things affects the other and you'd be tearing it apart multiple times

 

[Nelsonmd]

Another question too add to this. I've seen all the moog ball joint failure threads on 3rd gens, but not 4th gens. I've also read the 4th gens design is fail safe, meaning since the ball is below the arm it won't separate and make you lose your wheel.

Is this right?

I haven't heard it's failsafe but I haven't personally seen or heard of any 4th gen failures. As I understand, the 3rd gens had an inherently flawed design and the oem as well as the aftermarket joints had an unacceptably high failure rate.

In normal street use and lower speed offroading I'd imagine they perform well with appropriate maintenance, which I can attest to. Once you get into higher speed and heavy pig (lots of armor) applications I think one would want to address the higher demands put on all suspension components or at least up the maintenance and inspection intervals.

I'm using the moogs and recommend them, albeit I've only been running them a short time. I do prefer the fact they're greasable compared to the OEMs.

Not sure if any of the 3rd gen guys have made there way here to explain this yet, but I figure I'll throw my 2c in here as a 3rd gen owner and a mechanical engineer...

The 3rd gen LBJ is a poor design. Toyota fixed the flaw in the 4th gen design.

The 3rd gen LBJ, when the vehicle is just sitting, is under tension, meaning the suspension preload is oriented such that it's pulling the ball out of the cup. When driving, every little bump and articulation of the suspension just pulls the ball out of the cup even harder. When the ball eventually wears and fails, the suspension yanks it out of the cup and the wheel essentially falls off (it's still connected by the UBJ and the brake line, but the damage has been done and those won't hold it on in any meaningful way).

The 4th gen LBJ is essentially upside down from the 3rd gen. Suspension preload presses the ball into the up. So if the ball and cup wear out to the point that the ball could pull out of the cup, the suspension is actually holding the joint together. That means no wheel falling off. You still need to check it to see when the fit has loosened from wear and a separation becomes more possible, but no catastrophic failure like the 3rd gen.

The prevailing theory here is that to account for the design flaw (I call it a design flaw because it is a flawed design), Toyota used very tightly toleranced parts in the LBJ, and probably used some high strength metal alloys to keep the LBJ from failing prematurely. The OEM parts appears to be very good, and I haven't seen anyone report an OEM failure under the 90k mile replacement interval for the LBJ's. For aftermarket LBJ's, most commonly Moog, they can't afford to put in the materials and process that Toyota did, so they use cheaper stuff, and as a result, the LBJ's fail in a little as 10k miles (quite a few reported failing under 30k miles).

Sorry if that's repeated information, but in searching for another thread I found a couple 4th gen threads asking about this so I figured I'd post it up.

 

[niko303]

Not sure if any of the 3rd gen guys have made there way here to explain this yet, but I figure I'll throw my 2c in here as a 3rd gen owner and a mechanical engineer...

The 3rd gen LBJ is a poor design. Toyota fixed the flaw in the 4th gen design.

The 3rd gen LBJ, when the vehicle is just sitting, is under tension, meaning the suspension preload is oriented such that it's pulling the ball out of the cup. When driving, every little bump and articulation of the suspension just pulls the ball out of the cup even harder. When the ball eventually wears and fails, the suspension yanks it out of the cup and the wheel essentially falls off (it's still connected by the UBJ and the brake line, but the damage has been done and those won't hold it on in any meaningful way).

The 4th gen LBJ is essentially upside down from the 3rd gen. Suspension preload presses the ball into the up. So if the ball and cup wear out to the point that the ball could pull out of the cup, the suspension is actually holding the joint together. That means no wheel falling off. You still need to check it to see when the fit has loosened from wear and a separation becomes more possible, but no catastrophic failure like the 3rd gen.

The prevailing theory here is that to account for the design flaw (I call it a design flaw because it is a flawed design), Toyota used very tightly toleranced parts in the LBJ, and probably used some high strength metal alloys to keep the LBJ from failing prematurely. The OEM parts appears to be very good, and I haven't seen anyone report an OEM failure under the 90k mile replacement interval for the LBJ's. For aftermarket LBJ's, most commonly Moog, they can't afford to put in the materials and process that Toyota did, so they use cheaper stuff, and as a result, the LBJ's fail in a little as 10k miles (quite a few reported failing under 30k miles).

Sorry if that's repeated information, but in searching for another thread I found a couple 4th gen threads asking about this so I figured I'd post it up.

Diggin' this up but I have leaky LBJ's (and slightly less leaky UBJ's) on my 4th gen 118k miles, I'm thinking check for play -- assuming none, keep cruising with them, based on the above (and the fact that toyota won't sell them separate from the LCA)