You guys ever see this before

[snivilous]

What are those?? Enlighten me?!

They are an upper control arm that uses a spherical bearing (uniball) instead of a ball joint. They are stronger than stock, allow for more motion (travel), will bring your alignment back to spec if it's out from being lifted, and will help you clear larger tires if you don't use wheel spacers/differently backspaced rims than stock.

TOTAL CHAOS FABRICATION - 1996-2004 Tacoma 6 Lug Prerunner & 4WD1996-2002 4Runner 2WD & 4WD Upper Control Arm Suspension Kit

They do cost quite a bit is the downside...

 

[txbonds]

As I'm swapping to manual hubs I'll be pulling the whole intact spindles off my 97 but not sure if ill have them swapped before you need your replacements.

At any rate if you don't find any within the next few weeks for a reasonable price shoot me a PM and see where I'm at in the process as I'll offer these for sale when they are off the truck. I even have some new upper ball joints that could be pressed into them.

Good luck.

 

[UnderFire]

I've got a set of spindles that came off when I did the manual hub swap, they are non-ABS though.

 

[txbonds]

I've got a set of spindles that came off when I did the manual hub swap, they are non-ABS though.

There you go. If you need abs mine are abs but just not removed from the truck yet. You should be able to get it replaced easy enough.

 

[TCMach]

Just get uniball uppers

Light Racing UCAs will do the same without as much money. Also it makes UBJs a piece of cake. Once the adapter is pressed in, its a minute job Better for winter too.

 

[jsmith811]

crack

Can someone circle the area we are talking about ?

 

[nevada]

I'm not crazy, their is a crack on the upper ball joint right... It not how it's made?

is it actually cracked?

clean I up a bit and double check.
yes, I can see what looks like a crack, but I think ive seen that before on some others here in the shop, and they are made that way.

I don't have one in front of me now to double check tho.

id think if it was cracked open that far, the BJ would have pulled out already, as it would literally just be sitting there.

 

[kernel.panik]

Can someone circle the area we are talking about ?

Here's some mad Fotoshopping skills for ya!

 

[FROGrunner]

Yeezus. Good thing you caught that. I've seen lots if LBJ failure photos. I don't even wanna know what a spindle failure accident looks like.

Ive had it happen on my tundra back in the day while prerunning, had TC UCA's too. The upper/lower knuckle/balljoints are the weak link in the suspension. To correct it when i went to full long travel, i welded the uniball slug adaptor into the spindle rather then use the c clip that holds it to the spindle...from there never had a single issue with my spindles.

To the OP, I highly doubt your spindle cracked from the ball joint unless it was the incorrect balljoint and it was pressed/forced into the spindle...

 

[lhsoulrebel]

As I'm swapping to manual hubs I'll be pulling the whole intact spindles off my 97 but not sure if ill have them swapped before you need your replacements.

At any rate if you don't find any within the next few weeks for a reasonable price shoot me a PM and see where I'm at in the process as I'll offer these for sale when they are off the truck. I even have some new upper ball joints that could be pressed into them.

Good luck.

I may be interested, especially if you have the ball joints as well. How far along are you? I'm on the road, and won't me back for another 8 days anyway.

 

[lhsoulrebel]

Thanks to everyone who replied. I've been traveling for about a week now, and won't get to it for over another week when I get home... But thanks to everyone's input I have decent idea of how I want to tackle it!

 

[txbonds]

I may be interested, especially if you have the ball joints as well. How far along are you? I'm on the road, and won't me back for another 8 days anyway.

I've got all the parts just have to get them swapped out. Hope to get to work on it more this week. Will keep you posted.

 

[BrianSD_42]

Sun just happened to hit it after I washed the car and was inspecting my handy work... Does anyone think crappy NON-oem ubj's could have caused this or am I not thinking about this correctly?

[MENTION=60928]lhsoulrebel[/MENTION]

Can you please tell us what brand it was that broke?

Thanks!

 

[lhsoulrebel]

[MENTION=60928]lhsoulrebel[/MENTION]

Can you please tell us what brand it was that broke?

Thanks!

Sorry for the late reply.... Lots of travel! The spindle is stock, the ubj's are aftermarket life time warranty crap... Sorry I can't be of more help, shop installed them... I'll find out more when I get home in a week.... This trip I'm on will never end!!!

 

[lhsoulrebel]

Ok, so I finally got around to getting the truck fixed. I also found a day to replace the starter contacts... What a pita, took the whole day! (Would take much less time if I had to do it again... But hopefully not too soon). Anywho, back to the point of this thread...
Thanks to txbonds I have a fully functional spindle with a brand new ubj! I didnt want to spend the whole week working on the truck in single digit temps, so I paid to have it installed... $750!!! Ouch! Also had them install ss brake lines, makes a huge difference in pedal feel with the tundra brakes! Anyway, thanks to everyone for their input... Really appreciate the knowledge and experience everyone shares on here.