Lower ball joint replacement or whole lower control arm?

From doing a bit of searching, seems like replacing a lower ball joint is a major pain in the arse. Buying a whole lower control arm seems like a waste of money. 450 bucks for a Genuine Toyota lower control arm. 85 for a moog ball joint. Just a hair over 400 for a jobber part at Bumper to Bumper.
I did not find a good write up on how to replace a lower ball joint. Anyone got some advice?

 

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/su...oint-replacement-2005-tacoma.html#post3691540

 

You have to have a way to press the ball joint out and a new one in. You could buy the ball joint and take it to a shop and have them press it if you don't have one.

 

LOL. Thanks for the link! At least it was not a "sticky." That would have made my search extra lame!

 

I have same prob bad joint. bought LCA for $138.00 from ebay. gonna install this weekend. It looks solid so Im feeling comfortable. only time will tell.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2nd-gen-lower-ball-joint-replacement.513331/#post-16164871

 

I had both LCAs replaced with moog balljoints came with it an got an can bolts also. They are greaseable an totally just as good as stock I have not had not one issue with them. Here’s a side by side pic of the 2.

 

I replaced both of mine with Moog units as well. Their country of origin is China which bothers me a bit, but they are a stout oem replacement. Welds looked good, who knows the quality of the steel used unfortunately. I replaced my alignment hardware with oem when I did mine as one side was seized. Applied a liberal coating of anti-seize to the hardware. I've been running the LCA assemblies for about 10k miles, so no long term results yet, but no issues. I will press new joints into my oem LCA's and swap those back if/when the time comes.

Both lowers were under 300, and I had it finished up in four hours - most time consuming part was cutting out seized alignment cams.

 

Where did you order your MOOG parts from? Trying to find the best deal on them....

 

It’s almost impossible to find the Moog lower ball joints by themselves. Seem to only find the entire assembly.

 

Although I am finding some joints from 1A-Auto, anyone have experience with this company?

 

They’re some no name brands on eBay, they seem to be wel contracted units.

 

I’m finding tons of other brands I’ve never dealt with or some I’ve never heard of, but honestly the prices are awesome. My thing is, I haven’t really been able to find a person that has had serious issues with these offbrand parts. Everyone bashes them, but can’t show me a failure that’s caused by the part itself. (Failure from off road or trail use doesn’t count).

 

Exactly! I’m due soon for a replacement, I can get a set of both the left/right for under $300cdn. Can’t be any worse than my LBJ that are leaking.

 

I thought about doing the entire lowers. But honestly I just spent a crap load of money on other parts. And the only part that I could see for sure that needed replacement was the ball joints. So I may end up just getting those and keeping the stock arms. Also need new tie rods, but I can’t tell if my inners are bad, just the outters are obvious

 

Hi, Try Rockauto.com

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/toyota,2009,tacoma,2.7l+l4,1442969,suspension,ball+joint,10070


Hope this helps

 

Mannn, you’re killing me. Just ordered full set of lower control arms. I blame you.
The only didn’t I didn’t order was the alinement bolts. I’m really hoping I don’t have to, because the OEM ones are ridiculously priced. And the aftermarket ones break when doing an alinement from what I’ve heard from a lot of people