Bad ball joints

Like most "kits", that kit comes with stuff you probably don't need - like the control arm. The control arm itself simply doesn't wear out unless you bend/break it in some sort of wreck. You might just need new bushings, which are far cheaper, though they do take a little elbow grease (or a press) to replace.

I said earlier that I was happy with the MOOGs, but I also didn't put 100k miles on them, and I installed them properly (IMO, a lot of failures I've seen are installation/user error or just limits with the design itself, hence the Toyota recall).

Go with the best you can afford. If that's OEM, great. If it's MOOG, that's fine to. Your truck won't instantly implode because you put Moogs on. Just keep up on your regular maintenance, like you should even with OEM BJs...

 

It happened to me this weekend on the trail. It sucks man change em before it's to late everyone! Lol

 

I get my tires rotated/balanced/alignment checked every 5k miles and have asked that they inspect them. I have been told that if the ball joints were bad then they could not do a proper alignment...any truth to that statement?

 

Anyone know what can be the issue. My ball joint failed on me this Saturday. I replaced it on the trail yesterday. But today when I drove it it locked up mid turn. I almost drove onto the sidewalk. The only notable thing that broke was the CV and LBJ. Steering fluid seems fine. Sorry if I'm thread stealing.

 

damn, that sucks dude...sorry to hear. When you replaced it on the trail, did you use a torque wrench on the 4 LBJ bolts (60ft/lbs) and blue locktite? Was it the ball joint itself that gave out or the bolts?

 

It was the bolts that broke off. I Just put the bolts in on the trail as tight as I could get them to make it home. I installed everything today new CV and new LBJ

 

Huh, weird that they broke...60 ft./lbs isn't hard to do by hand I don't think. I wonder if the bolts that were included with the LBJs that you installed on the trail were not grade 8, if they were cheap bolts then makes sense that they would break. What kind of LBJ assembly was it, OEM, Moog, ?

 

It was an auto zone brand. But I noticed that one bolt was shorter than the rest I think it did not thread good in the spindle. I bought longer ones for the 2 that go closest to the disk.

 

There was a guy I think he worked for toyota but not sure if he's still doing it.

 

The bolts are specific to each side of the assembly, one side has longer bolts than the other...if they were switched around that could very well cause failure

 

The bolts I got in the auto zone one where all the same size tho.

 

Hm strange...I was just reading something in another thread where they were side specific and different lengths, might be different for OEM vs aftermarket I'm not sure

 

If its a good shop, that is correct, and they will just inspect it free of charge, try to sell you ball joints, and then re-inspect and align once the ball joints are changed.

 

Man I wish i would have took a pic for the tacoma world ppl. The auto zone one have the same length tho.

 

Bolts shank out, when this happens they shear off. Thus the warning of what bolts go where. They also stretch so putting a bolt to tq the 2nd time doesn't make it the same overall length as the 1st time

 

I think this is great advice. I am going to change LBJs on the same schedule as timing belts.

 

I have moog bj with factory bolts. They cost only $2.00 each from Toyota
...and blue loctite

 

Drove by this on way home from work today..

 

And its not the first ive seen on an all stock tacoma with no lift.

 

So my lower ball joint failure resulted in the whole rack getting messed up. Took it in to get checked out so I guess I gotta go fix that now. What a nightmare this truck has been the past month.