Replaced Lower Ball Joint, How Much Will This Affect My Alignment?

[Pyral]

I am replacing my driver side lbj and rebooting the CV axle that had the boot removed when my sway bar snapped.

The service manual says to have an alignment done after this, but it also says this for the front sway bar. I didn't move the steering wheel, but I did rotate the hub a lot while I removed the CV axle.

How much will this mess up my alignment? Should I get an alignment after this?

 

[96RedRunner]

3 different 4runners LBJ replacement didn't affect alignment, 2 mine one a friends.

 

[JZiggy]

If you didn’t change tie rod or LCA alignment cam positioning you should not need an alignment.

 

[96RedRunner]

4 Bolts 1 stud out of knuckle no alignment needed, [MENTION=148218]JZiggy[/MENTION] got a point.

 

[FD7683]

I will be the odd one here but for a good reason. When I did the upper and lower ball joints using Toyota parts the spindle came off to press the upper ball joints in/out. My alignment was off a good amount particularly the toe. Like others say if you do only the LBJ's, alignment should not be affected.

 

[3bears]

alll above is true, but its not unusual to find a tie rod bad at the time, and if you replace that then you will most likely need an alignment. I bet if you took it to a shop for lower ball joints, they might try to upsell an alignment

 

[mtbtim]

The only way you'd need an alignment after LBJ replacements is if the last alignment was done with ball joints that had significant slop in them, like they were ready to fail. So, what everyone said so far is accurate. No alignment is needed after swapping LBJs.

 

[Dogggg]

I mean usually you’d want to yeah but you can always just use the old string method to not pay a crap ton of money for an alignment