what brand ball joints??

KYMUDD

KYMUDD

New member
Hey guys new here. Great site lots of info. I just bought a 2001 sr5 sport edtion t4r. Did the test to check play in ball joints and they are rock solid. However the lower joints the boot is broke in the middle all the way around. I keep greasing them with a grease fitting needle. If I keep em greased and they is no play are they ok to drive for a little while until I get new ones? Also what brand do you guys recommened to replace them with?
Thanks in advance!
 
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You could just buy a new rubber boot from dealer and regrease it assuming the ball joint is good. Best advise is to just replace it with new oem part.
 
04LTtacoma said:
OEM sucks. I would get moog if I were you.
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I have Moog, with a lifetime warranty, but if they fail I'll still have the accident damage to pay for. They are supposed to be good, but the guys saying that any aftermarket may be more problematic has me slightly worried.
 
04LTtacoma said:
OEM sucks. I would get moog if I were you.
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I am assuming this is sarcasm... All the Moog components I have bought have rusted immediately. OEM is much higher quality. You get what you pay for with LBJ's, and because the 3rd gens don't have a very good design, you NEED quality parts. There are a couple threads on here about guys that cheaped out on aftermarket LBJ's and had them fail catastrophically within 30k miles.

Aside from the anecdotal evidence though, I assure you, as an automotive engineer, the OEM parts have had more design time spent on them, and have much more accountability on quality than any aftermarket part does. I can't explain here all the testing that the car companies force a supplier to go through (I have run multiple qualifications for American, Japanese, and German OEM's), but the aftermarket guys don't have any accountability to meet these specs (they don't even have the spec's, those documents are confidential and protected by non-disclosure agreements).

The reason you see recalls and TSB's from OEM's more than you do from aftermarket is because the aftermarket companies have no accountability and can change their parts at will, so if something goes wrong, they quickly change their design, and they have little to no liability on the parts already out there, whereas the auto OEM's have to recall everything, re-qualify a new design, fix the recall vehicles, and it winds up in the news and in court.
 
thanks

Thanks for the replys. The vehicle is 01 but only has 94000 miles on it. little rusty underneath due to being from upnorth. Should I replace tops when I do bottoms or if they are still tight leave them and just keep an eye on them. What kinda of life should you get out of ball joints anyway? The bottoms are still snug no play. Would it be worth the trouble to just replace boot or replace whole thing or just keep greasing them every 3000 miles? The boot will still hold grease it just split in the middle and is over lapping itself. Thanks again guys there is so much info on here that people have taken the time to give all us newbies.
 
KYMUDD said:
Thanks for the replys. The vehicle is 01 but only has 94000 miles on it. little rusty underneath due to being from upnorth. Should I replace tops when I do bottoms or if they are still tight leave them and just keep an eye on them. What kinda of life should you get out of ball joints anyway? The bottoms are still snug no play. Would it be worth the trouble to just replace boot or replace whole thing or just keep greasing them every 3000 miles? The boot will still hold grease it just split in the middle and is over lapping itself. Thanks again guys there is so much info on here that people have taken the time to give all us newbies.
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If the upper ball joints are tight and the boots aren't trashed, then leave them. The uppers see way less stress than the lowers.

I wouldn't just replace the boot, and I certainly wouldn't just keep adding grease. If you can afford to replace the joint, then do that. They run $80 each online. If you opt to replace the boot only, then take the whole joint off the vehicle, and clean it out really well, then replace the grease, making sure it gets down inside the joint. The point is, you want to make sure there isn't any grit in the joints before you regrease and close it up.

I think the LBJ's are 90k maintenance items, so you should at least get 90k out of them. Some guys get 200k+, but that is alot.

If you end up reusing your current ones, then it would be a good idea to make sure you are check them at every oil change just to make sure they aren't going down.
 
RockAuto Auto Parts

Everything I ordered from them that were sold as Raybestos Professional Grade, were OE parts in Raybestos boxes.

I also opted to go with Tacoma lower ball joints and Tacoma outer tie rods. You dont need to switch but if you do, you gotta do both the LBJ and OTR at the same time.

If you can afford it, replace the entire joint. You will not be able to get grease down around the ball and who knows whats gotten in there through the split boot. As Nelson said, the uppers are just followers, they do not see alot of load. If they are tight, leave them alone.
 
Ok guys I really appreciate the info and im gonna try to squeeze a few more miles out of them less than 5000, and replace the whole lower ball joint with oem. I had a lower ball joint give out on me a few months ago on my taco that was interseting ride at about 45mph when my front wheel fell off. I wish I would have found this site sooner as I used moog on them instead of oem. Any tips or advice on how to swap em out?
thanks again
Chris
 
opie74 said:
RockAuto Auto Parts

Everything I ordered from them that were sold as Raybestos Professional Grade, were OE parts in Raybestos boxes.

I also opted to go with Tacoma lower ball joints and Tacoma outer tie rods. You dont need to switch but if you do, you gotta do both the LBJ and OTR at the same time.

If you can afford it, replace the entire joint. You will not be able to get grease down around the ball and who knows whats gotten in there through the split boot. As Nelson said, the uppers are just followers, they do not see alot of load. If they are tight, leave them alone.
Click to expand...

Ok im new here lol what does OTR stand for?
Thanks
 
Outer Tie Rod End.

Your taco LBJ failed? Is it a 95-04 taco? If so, then it's basically the same as the 4runner one. I guess you know first hand why you want to be cautious with the LBJ quality.

Did you replace the failed lbj with Moog, or did a Moog joint fail?

As far as tips, I would buy new bolts form the dealer for pretty much everything you are replacing (don't just get grade 8's or 10's from autozone for critical chassis applications, that just isn't ok). All together they will be less than $20 and they are the stress carriers. Alot of them are not really meant to be reused (especially if they have been overtorqued by a shop, which is extremely common). I am alot more apt to buy new bolts than most guys here, so take this with a grain of salt, but I don't regret any of the money spent on new OEM bolts. Also, use loctite on them and be sure you have a torque wrench to torque everything correctly. You don't have to be exact, but it is easy to overtorque these things.

If you have some rust, then it may be difficult/impossible to separate the LBJ from the OTRE without ruining the OTRE boot.

If you replace the OTRE, mark where the ITRE nut is so you can put it back exactly where it was and not ruin your alignment. Look for videos of how to give yourself an alignment so you can at least check it when you're done.

That's about all I can think of for tips. Search here for walkthrough's too, there's plenty of info already posted here.
 
I recently did the LBJ upgrade about two months ago. I went with OEM Tacoma LBJ's and OTRE's. I bought from I believe Toyota of Dallas. If you need help finding the part numbers send me a PM, and I can find them for you. The Tacoma ones pretty much bolted right in. I did have to grind a tad bit off my stop though. Not a big deal, it took like two minutes each side. The truck feels and turns exactly the same as stock, just a little bit tighter steering which I like anyways.
 
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OEM all the way, buy from Toyotoa of Dallas, they have the best prices period. Get new bolts from dealership, and use blue Loctite. Doesn't matter if they have no play, if you are unsure of when (or if) they were replaced, then replace them, as LBJ failure can wreak havoc, especially on the highway!
 
I have replaced suspension parts with Moog in all my vehicles in the past and they would fail. Yea it would take a few years one time, maybe a few months another but they would fail.

I look at it this way. My original OEM left ball joint lasted almost 196000 miles before they started to go. The right one stayed good till about 210000 miles. If the OEMS lasted that long than they should again.

ALWAYS BUY OEM!!
 
Buy OEM toyota. Mine lasted 236k and still looked fine. I looked at a ton of failed lower ball joint pics, and decided to replace mine(with OEM).
 
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