Lower Ball Joint Insurance Policy…

Saw this on the Facebooks…

Posted it over on Tundras. Seems the Taco’s are having more catastrophic failures.

 

How does that prevent a failure of the bolts?

 

Cool idea ig but the issue is just lack of maintenance. Preety much everyone with failures admits they never changed them or should have been upgraded to uni balls ball joints.

 

Rube Goldberg seal of approval.

 

How do you torque the bolts closest to the backing plate.

 

If you were bombing down some rough roads even newer joints, might be a better piece of mind.

I think no would need to see some testing and them actually supporting the weight of the vehicle.

 

IFS elimination

 

Should temp hold if the bj separated. Will buy you enough time to get to the shoulder and stop to prevent major damage.

 

It’s generally accepted as best practice here to replace them every 70k, correct? Just replaced my lowers and uppers but just want to keep records to keep myself accountable in the future.

 

Had a better plan, I bought LBJ ones from napa with zerts....
so every 6 months UBJ, LBJ, and tie end gets goosed.

Once a year on the universals......SKF's with zerts.


These front McPherson-ish is more like a sedan than a heavy truck...
so the front suspension sees heavily action.....
if those balls go dry.....they deteriorate super fast...

 

And what makes them go to dry? My OEMs certainly don’t get heavily used off-road . But I know they can’t be greased, at least without some major disassembly or something.

 

You can always get get a needle for your gun....

just stab right thru the boot....most of em have weep holes...
that keeeps them from blowing out when you over grease them...

I would just use less and do it a higher frequency.

You wont hurt that boot.....unless its already rotten.

thats also how they go dry, heat and pressure forces that grease around into pockets....
then you have dry voids....

again we're talking a super active front suspension....with a fairly heavy body.

The 6 lug was a leap forward for them.....but they didnt beef up that lower ball....
it even cost em a recall on some of them....

I think from 2001 and newer they got a better handle on it.

So if you have an older than 01 or 02.......and dont when the LBJ was done.....then It's time.......especially a 6 lug.

Usually they reuse those bolts......and that's a big NO NO.


I'd replace the factory LBJs under 100K......and then maybe every 75K after that....
and thats with lubing and taking care of them......and not much off road.

That bracket is only good for off road toys....and even then the wheel may be so misaligned it just goes in a circle...or jambs like a 9mm cartridge

 

OEM joints use a Teflon cup around the ball and do not require grease. Aftermarket joint use grease, hence the zerks and maintenance required.

 

Thats very interesting......so the teflon cup deteriorates, and then one day it comes apart with zero warning.

that explains why this happens a lot......the space left by the missing cup is the smoking gun....


You know they did the same thing with the steering rack guide.....
they dump the roller......and now slide on a teflon pad....
makes me wonder how that comes out in a few years...

 

Toyota's spec for if it is loose or note is very tight. Some of us who have been around the block know that you just replace them every 60k miles to be safe. Always replace the bolts with new ones and torque them EXACTLY to Toyota's specs.

A lot of the failures have been the joint themselves, but it is also common to see the bolts fall out and/or shear. But again that's a bolt issue not the joint issue.

 

Well I went a different route......IF the napa fails, you will all get to hear about it...

toyota has had a number of fails over the years......this, the head cracks, frame rot, list goes on...

Sure seems like a lot of money you guys have to shell out every 60K......

as far as I know, no other trucks do you have to do this,

its like a dog you have to have its leg stuck back on every so often.

Same on those crap denso radiators......the loyalty astounds me.



Mines a 5lugger so 60K is about right.....but a pair for mine is $120...
most of the rest of you are not so lucky to escape that cheap....

 

It's a few hundred dollars every few years. Not a big expense at all.

 

The expense is not really my concern......its the uncertainty...


you know a lot of this is made in mexico now....

you can see from fords recalls/problems, mexico may not work out.

So todays oem parts may not be even near the quality of the original,
their radiators come to mind...

its gotten so bad, you probably dont want to mail order a denso radiator anymore,
best to buy that face to face.


Everybody saw the lastest tacoma's with incorrect machined rear axle housings being recalled.....
that one missed step is costing Toyota a bunch of money..

these are some of the people making your parts now.

And nobody gets a free pass....the napa's may go cheap too....

I'm toyota parts all the way.....on everything that touches the engine...
not so much on all the other.....much room for improvement there.

 

Not trying to degrade this into an OEM vs. aftermarket ball joint debate, but I'm just trying to understand your point.

Are you saying "everything is made cheap now, so I'd rather spend less for the same quality?"

I'm pretty sure the OEM ball joints are still manufactured the same way they were when the truck was created. They use a sealed design, which no aftermarket joint uses. There are very few, if any, reports of OEM joints failing prematurely. Most of the failures posted on here were from lack of checking tolerances and just letting them go too long. If you did that with any ball joint it will fail. If you spend more on OEM you generally get more miles out of it. I bet if you did a comparison of cost per mile to aftermarket, it would be around the same. So my question is, do you want to spend less in the short run and do more work in the long run, or spend the same in the long run and do less work overall?