Front upper and lower control arms torque help

After I had an alignment done I've been hearing a knock sound coming from the front when I step on the brakes. I've heard this sound before from a previous alignment and it turned out to be the cam bolts were loose. Can someone tell me how to tighten the cam bolts so I do not change the alignment when I go to tighten them.

 

There is a nut on the front and rear Cam Assemblies. If you only torque them you will not do anything to the alignment. Are you 4X4 or 2X4? The link below gives you the proper torque specs for either and shows you the nut you are tightening.

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

 

Thanks for the info,, so do I just hold the one side with a wrench and make sure it doest move and just tighten the nut or just tighten the nut and not worry about holding the bolt, sorry I know it sounds stupid but I' not familiar with how the cam bolts work

 

I just tightened the 4 nuts

 

Ok I will give it a go thank you

 

You said you have a knock sound. If its loose cam bolts you may already be out of alignment......again.
Don't just start turning things to tighten them as the LCA cams require a lot of torque and you can turn the cams themselves and make a real mess out of your alignment. It is important to counter-hold when tightening. The front and rear cams on the LCAs are different and I would suggest you make a diagram of what gets tightened and what gets counter held.

The OEM UCAs have no cams. Both the UCAs and LCAs must be tightened while the weight of the truck is on them.

 

Thanks for the added info ,, I'm going to tighten everything while recording it so if the torque is out of spec I'm going to take it back to the alignment shop and have them recheck it again for the third time

 

So i think I found where the knock is coming from.i checked the cam bolt torque numbers and all are good . So i decided to check the drivers side axle shaft for play and what I found is that there is play in and out and about a 1/8 of an inch up and down at the differential. I did the ecgs bushing last summer do you know if it' common to have up and down play in it again after installing the new bushing after some time of driving with it

 

I was the first to do the ESGS bushing and noticed that the play in that CV increased after it wore in with the journal on the CV. In fact there is a thread about this matter here. I set up a dial gauge and started measuring the deflection relative to miles driven and it became clear on mine that the wear rate was high at the beginning but decreased with use. I did this for 30k or so miles and then gave up as there was nothing more to see. The short answer is I do not believe that is where your clunk is coming from.

Rather, if the ignorant alignment tech tightened the cam bolts while the truck was off the wheels and one or more of the bushings have been damaged I would look there to see if there are any obvious cracks or breaks in the bushings. For reference, it happened to mine. Had an alignment on new LCAs in Oct and by the summer the bushings were shot.

Also take a close look at the sway bar bushings and the link rods as they like to make that kind of noise. Do not exclude the noise coming from the rear that you could swear is actually from up front as the frame is a big musical instrument that will transmit noises. Bolts tight on rear spring mounts, shocks, ubolts on axle perches?

 

I found the knock sound ,, it was coming from the caliper bolts on the front, I cant believe it, the truck only has 24,000 on it. but when I did check the cam bolts the passenger side was not torqued to spec.

 

Huh? Loose brake caliper? Glade you found it.

 

A LOT of front end clunks on all brands and types of vehicles are from calipers and pads. I chased a clunk on the 93' Miata for a month and a half and I KNEW it was the brakes as it stopped as soon as I applied them. I finally applied ''stikum'' to the rear of the pads [which were 95%] and that was it. No play in the bearings, calipers were good, just that few thousands of gap between the rotor and pad face was all it took to clunk. It was not mileage related either as the vehicle only has 34 K on the odometer.

Brakes are one of those things I trust no one but myself on, I don't have to watch a clock when doing them and corner cutting time when doing brakes are one of those things where the consequences can have disastrous results. Hell, I even watch someone do front brakes, not pump them up to close the tolerances between the pads and rotors, and drop it into gear and back into the vehicle behind them and they KNEW better, they were just in a hurry.

 

If you off road much, just get in the habit of having a few wrenches in the truck and tight and check stuff real quick. Kinda annoying I know but at the shop I worked at we would do free 500 mile check ups if you bought our lifts and we installed them and you’d be surprised how much can wiggle and rattle loose. Wether off-roading or just common street use.

 

Do you know if the drivers side axle shaft is supposed to have play in and out from the differential ?

 

Yes. The axial play is a combination of the fact that a circlip is used on the end of the CV shaft to secure it in a groove in the spider gears where there is also some play. You may also be seeing play in the CV joint itself depending on where you grab it.

The whole problem with the radial play is that the needles of that left bearing ride in a plastic cage that appears to deform. It does not take much as a little bit of slop in the needle bearing-to-CV journal translates to a lot of play. The TSB bearing is a cruel joke and the only long term fix appears to be the ECGS bushing. So why is the right side not sloppy like the left? Because the CV shaft enters a large ball bearing on the right at the very end of the ADD tube and is a much better design.

 

Thanks sensei

 

Reviving this so I don't have to start a new thread, and it's in-line with the title:

I diagnosed a front-end pop to my LCA cam bolts being under-torques. I know it's not the bushings because the it happened before and after new LCAs. What I've found is that I can torque the cam bolts until the pop goes away, but by that point I'm a bit over-torqued for the spec on the 4x4, which should be 100 ft/lbs, and I'm at ~120 or more. FYI the 2wd spec is 155 ft/lbs. Anyone else experience this? I'm not overly concerned because I'm pretty sure the hardware can handle the torque no problem. Thanks

 

I just got my inspection and the shop noted that the lower control arms had some play. Mine were under torqued (just under 100) so I moved them to 120 and the noise is gone. Anyone know if over torquing those bolts will present another problem? My guess is 120 won’t be a big deal but I’m not sure.

 

its not a problem

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/clunk-sound.668788/

 

It may not be recommended by a professional mechanic and I can assume no liability for this, but this is what I had to do after I replaced all of my lower control arm bushings and OEM cam/bolt hardware. Mine came loose after my first alignment.
I pull my truck into my garage, with the front on ramps. You want the weight of the vehicle on the suspension.
Remove the skid plate and grab my 1/2" breaker bar and a 19mm impact socket (I think it's 19mm) I put a 2' cheater pipe on my breaker bar and tighten until you can feel the bolt/nut 'seat' and stop moving. I'm pretty sure I'm at least at 100 ft-lbs, maybe a tad higher. Those bolts are sturdy and hard. By the way, I would never recommend the aftermarket, greasable bolts that have the small grease port down the center. There's NO WAY they can be as strong as the original hardware. I greased all of mine before I reassembled everything when I redid the front end. I check them every couple of months and they've been fine for several months now. When mine did come loose last year, my steering wheel shifted ever so slightly as well so I knew I'd lost alignment. After my second alignment, that's when I started checking them. I would get a 'pop' noise when I went over speed bumps.
I know I should use a torque wrench, but mine doesn't go that high.
Just my two cents.