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

Today,

I had my Dorman LCA's waranteed out by a local shop after the bushings developed a crack within a year of installation (~20K miles). Since they were doing the labor to swap the LCA's I took the opportunity to have them replace the Dorman LBJ's with OEM parts and paid the difference to upgrade back to OEM LCA's ($100 upcharge, ea.) but they charged me zero labor for the entire operation. After reading the back & forth on here about the OEM vs. Non-OEM LBJ's, I didn't want to risk it. (Sorry El Taco Diablo).

My new MAF sensor came in the mail so I swapped it out. No 5-minute job for me, oh no. The cruise control was in the way so I had to remove that to get to the MAF, and one of the 4mm philips screws stripped (of course), so I replaced them with hex socket head screws. Since hex wrenches come with a 90 deg. bend on them I won't have to remove the cruise control when I clean the MAF.

 

@tymeson

Lol... no worries dude. You can keep your loose, rubber, OEM bushings. I know, without a doubt, my polyurethane Whitelines are better

 

This one hits home haha too real.

 

I figure if the bushings go bad again I can always put polyurethane in the next go-around, I just didn't feel confident running Dorman after seeing the pictures of all the lost wheels we've had on here recently.

 

@tymeson... you are also going to find that there is not much room between the rear LCA alignment bolts and the steering rack. I had to un-bolt the rack from the crossmember to give me clearance to get the rear alignment bolts out... that would be a good time to do an Energy Suspension rack bushing kit (around $25).

...aaaand... to get the rack to move back, out of the way far enough, I had to drop the sway bar at the brackets... Energy Suspension bushing set around $15.

 

?

 

Then why are you apologizing to me... lol

Never said anything about using Dorman anything

 

Lol... sorry dude. I was reading that while I was sitting at a stop light. Didn't read it correctly (you should never text and drive btw)

I thought you were talkin about the Whitelines when you said that... you were talking about LBJs

Ooops



MOOG LBJs are the way to go! It's the very best way to make OEM homers want to douse themselves in rubbing alcohol and lite their hair on fire.

 

What did I do to my 1st gen today. Let’s see.
Got it on the Ground finally after about a year!!!!!
Sorry super excited since this is taking forever to accomplish. And I have to make every little piece of everything!!

 

For the LCA bushings how long would it take to change them out?

 

I have no experience doing it myself, but my Yota shop quoted me $1100 to put energy suspension bushings in. I'm assuming $160 for the parts + 9 hours of labor. Removing old bushings is a bugger and a half.

 

It's hard for me to say... when I did mine, I replaced the UCAs, LBJs, sway bar disconnects, sway bar bushings, shocks 4 corners, coils, and added AALs in the back... me and my 17 year old son did that in a weekend.


I took it down to this.

All you have to do is disconnect the sway bar disconnect, pop the LBJ loose, and remove the lower shock bolt, then take out the alignment bolts to get the LCA out. (make sure to mark the alignment bolts so you can put them back in adjusted the way they came out).
You'll have to loosen the steering rack (4 bolts) And I suggest dropping the sway bar at the brackets (4 bolts).
Once you have the LCAs out, as long as you press the bushings out by pressing the sleeve AND the washer at the same time, they are a bit of a pain, but should pop out in 20-30 min per LCA.

I screwed up on my first LCA and only pressed on the sleeve. The waser popped off and then it turned in to a pain in the ass.

Hard to say how long it would take. Really depends on experience level. I could probably replace LCA bushings, by myself, in 6 hours or so... now that I know how I did it wrong the last time.

 

More things to keep in mind. A lot of people say the LCA adjust bolts get rusted and siezed. Fortuantely for me, they were a little rusted but not siezed. If they are siezed, I have heard people have to cut them off and replace them... they are about $11 a piece x4 and are not always stocked, even by dealers. You are in AZ... I think yours will probably NOT be siezed, like mine... I'm in CA. I think the people who have trouble with this are in snow country... with salt etc... but just keep that in mind.

 

They will be seized. Or at least 3 out of 4 will be.

 

Lol... not one of mine was even very difficult to loosen with a 2ft breaker bar... and my truck has 260,000 miles on it, and hadn't had an alignment in over 100,000 miles.

 

Getting up there.

 

Here's an old picture of me with the truck. Danger Zone!

 

Ain't that the truth. Sawzall was my friend.

 

Liking the blue. Did you get blue lights or got blue covers for the bulbs?

 

I need to get a pic of me and my truck. Is that a cb antenna ?