What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

It'll get ya every time

 

Everybody freaks out about lower ball joints failure, but for what I read everywhere, most of the failures are from oem BJ in high milage tacomas and the bolts coming loose for not doing right torque to specs or not using blueloctite.
I have moog 555 installed with oem bolts and moog tie rods. Truck drives like a champ.

 

are moog tripple 5 made in japan also? i know the ac delco ones i bought were also labeled tripple 5 and made in japan. just did both of mine over the weekend, super easy and quick. old ones were oem with 140k and had about 1/8" of play in them

 

Bahahahaha thanks

Yeah the front isn't too bad. Sadly I have yet to find one damn hole in the frame. It's solid!! I was kind of hoping I'd find a hole somewhere!

 

*casually packs frame full of mud and salt while scraping paint off*

 

I am curious...and yeah I'm usually pulling 3rd gear on most passes at 3500 rpm's and higher lol and it does just dandy. Honestly I think my tent helps me on the highway other than the additional weight...going 70mph on a somewhat flat highway I got 20-21 mph with the tent on lol. I about shit my pants when I looked at I had got almost 200 miles on half a tank. I thinks its because the wind flows over the tent and back down rather than circulating in the bed. I think @m3bassman had a representation of the windflow with and without the tent a while back

 

That was the plan, I read somewhere that somebody had vibes and greased the drive shaft and it went away. One can hope.

Last time I greased it the last zerk wouldn't let me pump any thing in. So I'll look into remedies of that

 

What mine looked like

 

On the Moog subject..
when I joined this site, I too fell victim to the cheap parts bandwagon. In some cases it's ok, in others, it's a matter of safety.

I had my front end done with Moog lower ball joints and Moog outer tie rods just about two years ago.
The tie rods had under 20,000 miles and they were replaced, both shot. The ball joints were replaced shortly after that, less than 30,000 miles. Very gritty in the ball and socket, lots of play beginning at that point. Yes they are greasable, but you have to take them out to grease them. Never had to grease the OEM parts.
Both I replaced with OEM. I would have saved money and time by going OEM from the beginning.

The originals from the factory made it over 200,000 miles. Do the math, replace with Moog every 30,000, give or take, until you hit the 200,000 mile mark, (roughly 7 times)... compared to OEM one time replacement.

The Lower Ball Joint is subjected to forces that normal ball joints never see. It spends it's life literally being pulled apart by the front end weight as opposed to being pushed together.
Yes, some bolts have sheared. But there are some that also simply pulled from the socket.

Moog makes good parts, for other vehicles. I will never install another aftermarket part, except for performance parts, on my truck again.

 

Yes you do. You have to remove the plug, install a zerk, and grease it up. The zerk opening faces cast material on the lower swing arm. The only way to get to it is to remove the tire, the tie rod end, and lastly the ball joint itself to get to it.

 

Awesome.
Here is the shitty Moog LBG.
Notice the little plug.


Here is the lower swing arm, notice the bend in the cast that the lbj mounts to?
Not sure how a grease gun gets in there. Maybe some of you have something I'm not aware of.


These next two pics say a lot about the quality.



It's your truck, do what you want. There are members here who have already been down that road and know what to expect. I'm just trying to make sure nobody makes the same mistake I did. If you're on a budget, then go cheap. When you're more flush, spend it again later on when they fail.

 

All you have to do is turn the wheel.

 

(Goes to the dealership)
-sir that's a big hole, are you sure a hammer wasn't the reason.
(holds happen behind back) - nope that rust is just that bad. Sooo can I get a new frame please?

 

Anyone here running a catch can on a naturally aspired 3.4l? Debating if I should...
Thanks.

 

way to promote inferior product.
I know you're just being helpful.
Ok, turn the wheel and grease them. I'll spend the next 200,000k not having to fuck with mine. Nor do I have to worry about it coming apart.

 

Good information thank you for sharing. Replaced my lbj at 125K with masterpro parts. Guess when I hit 10K on these I will go back to OEM.

Really do see a difference. Like people say buy cheap get cheap.

 

Truth be told, they inspect the frames with a hammer. Take a hammer or screw driver and if you can puncture the frame with barely any force they will give you a new frame.

 

im not. i even said last page i replaced a perfectly good pair for oems.

 

There are some threads on here about catch cans in general. I would look them up.

I know that my manifold was caked in oil when I took it apart from the pcv system.

Some say there is no point of using one, some say that it's a good idea....

 

LBJs....with enough abuse all will fail. some sooner than others. get what you can afford. anything will be better than parts with 200k miles on em. i put the moog ball joints on my brothers 4 runner in hawaii 4 years and 50k miles ago, after a 6 months old factory ball joint failed. While my sister-in-law was driving with her three babies. shit happens. give me a ball joint made by anyone and I'll show you it can & will fail. I'm a service manager, so I can attest, alot of factory parts are quite better than their aftermarket counter parts, but that in no way makes the aftermarket irrelevant. on dodge trucks the moog BJs are far and away better than factory, for half the price. the key here is maintaining your vehicle, looking over the vehicle for worn parts at each oil change, LBJs, UBJs, u joints, brakes, tires, shocks...normal shit that are just like humans and begin dying from day one. 200 bucks can be alot to spend in todays economy for a lot of people. if all you can afford is moog then do it, but do so knowing the service interval may be shorter than a factory unit. but you guys cant blame moog because the ball joint, made for a vehicle with smaller everything when stock, failed after bouncing around on 33s or larger tires and wheeling and jumping and the host of other awesome shit we do in these trucks. expecting a corvette on a corolla budget doesnt mean you can just blame a manufacturer, who manufactures generally to stock or factory specs, when some dumb shit you did led to a parts failure.