Torquing alignment cam bolts without messing up alignment

Hey everyone,

So I have been chasing this obnoxious clunking in my front end, and I'm fairly certain it is the LCA bushings/alignment cam bolts. I have heard they need to be torqued at 100ft lbs, but I have also heard 130ft lbs is good to solve this issue. I checked one, but knock it slightly out of alignment in doing so. Long story short, I got it realigned but want to do the others. In retrospect I should have checked all of them then gotten it aligned again, but I thought it was only 1 making noise.

Anyways, is there a trick to do this without screwing up my alignment? I know to mark the cams before doing anything but that can only be so precise... Perhaps putting a wrench on the cam and having it pressed against something, maybe the LCA itself, before torquing?

I know this might be a dumb question I apologize, but the guys at my local Firestone have already been really cool about me coming into get my lifetime alignment (Which is supposed to be every 6 months of like 6,000 miles) like 5 times in the last 6 months because I knock it out of alignment off road, replace something, etc

 

Take it to an alignment shop. Your just going to get into a never ending circle if you screw around with this yourself.

The alignment technician will loosen and re-torque the bolts to get the right specs anyway.

 

The cam shouldn't rotate when the bolt is torqued though. Make sure you got the wrench on the bolt hex head, not the hex thats part of the cam.

 

When I checked the first one, I am 99% positive I was torquing the bolt head and not the cam, but it still moved :-\

 

I would first make some witness marks from the cams to the frame so if anything does move you can simply match the witness marks back up. Are you holding the cam side with a big wrench while you are tightening the nut ? If you are already torqued to 100 and you are still hearing a clunk then that is not the problem. I see that you have 5100's how much lift do you have those set at ? A lot of people with maxed out 5100's have a clunk but it is actually the coil over topping out because you hardly have any droop / down travel remaining so what you hear is the coil over topping out.

Here is the torque spec guide : https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-torque-spec-guide.318116/


The 5 lug torque spec is 155 ft lb

The 6 lug torque spec is 100 ft lb

 

Hey man, thanks for the response. I'll definitely make witness marks, but I know alignments are to fractions of a degree so I was worried even being off a minute amount will screw something up...

My 5100s are at the lest setting, but I have OME 885 coils which give me the left, I'm pretty positive it's not the strut topping out because the noise is when rebounding from a stop (As in pulling up to a stop, the front dips, and then when it sits back down it clunks) or occasionally during tight turns.

I only checked 1 of the 4 alignment cams because I thought it was coming from a specific area but now I'm not so sure, so I want to check all 4. If they're all at 100 I will just change the bushings because, as far as I know, they are original

Thanks again!

 

The drive shaft slip yolk is know for binding due to the stupid amount of axle roll the stock leaves have. The slip yolk will bind and then " clunk " when it lines up and slips a bit. Folks have even thought that they have been lightly rear ended at lights from the slip yolk clunk.

 

I've looked into that a bit but I've had at least half a dozen people standing around listening for this and everyone thinks it's coming from the front suspension. It also happens when making low speed turns. I only feel like in my foot too. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help though!

 

Please let us know when you get a definite answer to this.. thanks!

 

if something is clunking = something is l o o s e !!

no less something is worn & needs to be replaced

if its a temp fix

leaning on it only buys U some time

thinkinabout doin the rest only means U need to fix Ur front end