OK - stats on the truck are: 238,000 miles now. Bought the truck about 3 weeks ago. I have no maintenance records, registered the vehicle on the toyota owner site and NO maintenance records are showing up in their database. It's almost like the truck got bought 13 years ago and hid from any dealer maintenance.
I know the truck is not on the list of eligible vehicles for the LBJ recall, I have verified that. So, while over all I know that a lot of components need to be replaced on the suspension and I am assuming with lack of records that nothing has been replaced, front and rear. Due to limited funds right now, I want to focus on those things that will correct the immediate issues.
The truck is stock, no lift, 2x4, no mods that I can see on the suspension at all, in fact, most if not all of it looks to be original equipment. I do not do any off-roading, everything is straight dad-driving...lol
Overall, the truck rides good, but then I get on the road, or on the highway at various speeds, and start to get looseness, side to side movement, generally makes me a bit nervous handling it, especially in curves sometimes.
Rear end shocks I am pretty sure are shot, bounce test comes back 1.5 - 2 bounces.
Front struts seem tight, no real bounce on the bounce test, however, I am seeing some oil/grease/dirt at the top of those struts, but no on the rear shocks. I believe they are also original equipment as well. Sometimes I hear a groan from the right front side when turning the wheel that direction, and today, I heard it from the left front side. I am thinking that is the struts, but not sure.
I did a preliminary test today on the driver side tire for play, got it up in the air with some difficulty as the floor jack I borrowed from my neighbor would not get up to the frame so I had to stick a squared off piece of firewood on the jack to get to the frame, and even then, the jack was at full extension. No play up and down, but did get some minor play side to side. Going to do the passenger side shortly, but, given the mileage, age, etc on the components, I am pretty sure my first replacements there will be the LBJ's, both sides, and OTRE on both sides as well, as the OTRE boots next to where the OTRE joins the LBJ on both sides are showing grease. Main boots covering the ITRE's are clean, no cracks or grease.
So, replacing ITRE's will be an option depending on their shape when I get the OTRE's off.
I am not seeing any noticeable sag on the rear so I think my coils are ok. Right now they are down the list of priority items to replace. So, my priority item there will be to replace the shocks, already got a set of Monroe - Sensomatics on order for those.
Jury is still out on the poly-bushing replacement on the rack, but, I am going to redo my assessment there following Gerdo's recommendation, and see what happens.
