Front end bushings? Wrapped it up yesterday.

You put new bushings, and it rides different.

Sounds about right if your old bushings were thrashed.

What are you really asking?

Your arms look pretty clean which tells me no rust/siezing or getting those old bushings out. I bet you didn't even need any heat to pop them out. I got mine out with the bottle jack before going Whitelines.

 

I did the LCA bushings on my truck, and two buddies' trucks in the past year. All three trucks had old (likely original OEM style) rubber bushings. We used heat and bottle jack method on all 3. Arms went back without issues on all 3 trucks, and none of us seemed to notice much difference (positive or negative) in ride quality.

I didn't read through this whole thread, but have you checked out your body mount bushings? My ride isn't stellar and my body mounts look pretty toasted. Will be changing them to poly bushings here in the next couple weeks and will report back if it makes any difference in my ride quality.

 

I wish I knew the right question to ask. I thought the ride was fine prior to the bushing change, they just made a lot of squawking noises. I proceeded to replace the bushings with Whitelines, and the process went as expected. I did have to heat up the control arms to get the oem bushings out, and had to have the Whitelines pressed in the last 1/4" or so, as nothing I did would accomplish that. In light of a lot of other people who have done the Whiteline bushing installs, and reported no perceivable change in ride quality, it just has me wondering where to look next. I suppose it's possible the Whitelines were just not the thing for my Prerunner, being a somewhat lighter vehicle, but who knows...it might also be the body mount bushings, as stated above. Mine don't seem to be in bad shape, but they are 20 years old. If those do get replaced, I don't see any alternatives available to poly bushings, so I don't know if oem body mount bushings are available or not.

 

As stated above, mine don't look bad, but are 20 years old. Did you also use Whiteline lca bushings?

I look forward to your review of the post body mount bushing ride quality.

 

I must've forgotten this thread (as I see I'm subscribed to it).

What is it you're trying to fix exactly?

And a Prerunner has nothing to do with it; my first experience with Whitelines are in the Prerunner I used to have.

 

I used the OEM rubber ones, mostly out of fear of noise issues (that I'd read about on here).

Regarding the body mounts, mine look okay too, but I'm willing to bet the parts I can't see won't look as good once I tear the current ones out.

 

The point of my revisiting this thread recently is I seem to have quite a jarring ride over smaller bumps at slower speeds. It pretty much coincides with the bushing change, so my thoughts were it is the Whiteline poly bushings that are the issue. But a lot of other people have stated that they did not see a perceivable change after installing Whitelines, so I am mystified. I think my next step will be to replace the Whitelines with oem rubber bushings and see if that does the trick. Fingers crossed. If that doesn't do the trick, I'll look into new cab mount bushings.

 

Have changed the shocks? 20 year old shocks probably ride like shit. I can't see the bushings being the problem other than maybe taking the play out of the old bushings giving you the full affect of the blown shocks.

 

New Bilstein 4600s put on all around a few months prior to the bushing change. Ride was fine then.

 

With the help of my son-in-law yesterday I finished up swapping in new oem LCAs with the oem rubber bushings. Ride quality has returned to how it was prior to the Whiteline bushing installation. I am quite satisfied. There’s no telling why the WL bushings changed the ride in my case…

Word of advice - people already know this, but I can now personally attest that using aftermarket lower ball joints is a risky venture. While the LBJs I installed last year (CTR) were fine as far as no play, it was very hard to move the stud around in the socket. Not to mention they do not come with a castle nut, but a nylock nut. That should have been the first warning, but last year when I did the job I was more interested in saving money than having the best quality, and have learned a lot about LBJs on this forum in the last year. New oem LBJs & bolts on order from Roseville Toyota.

Thanks to all for their input on my thread.

 

Agreed. The fact that it's a Prerunner is irrelevant here. I think I mentioned earlier in this thread that I also DIY installed Whitelines into my prerunner with no issues. No issues during install or afterwards.

 

Wrapped up the last of this project yesterday - replaced the CTR lower ball joints, installed when I did the initial bushing job last year, with oem Toyota LBJs. As expected, the oem LBJs are so much better. The ball in the joint on the CTR would not even move at all, even with great effort. The swap was pretty straightforward, and only took a bit more time due to the fact that I redid my Bilstein 4600 shocks. When the shop I took them to did the coil swap, they did not line up the notches in the rubber isolaters for the heads of the top hat studs , and it has always bugged me. They're fixed now. To do this, I picked up this item from Amazon, and it made the job super simple:

$113 ATPEAM Macpherson Strut Spring Compressor Kit Universal Interchangeable Fork Coil Extractor Tool Set

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0922W5XHB?ie=UTF8

I've never used a spring compressor that was so easy and seemingly safe to use. I plan to use it on my son-in-law's Lexus next week to change out his front struts.

So, all is completed on the lower control arm bushing replacement (actually ended up with oem arms), steering rack bushings, sway bar bushings, and lower ball joint replacement. No more squeaks (the initial reason for the LCA bushing replacement), the ride is back to how it was before.

Thanks to any and all who contributed to this project, I really appreciate it.

 

I just read this thread because contemplating doing the LCA and UCA bushings on my 2004 PreRunner, and glad you put all of this out there. I have new LBJs (OEM), UBJs (OEM), Sway bar bushings, sway bar links, steering rack bushings (Energy), TREs. Based on your experience, I will do OEM LCA bushings with the cam adjusters and bolts, and then probably aftermarket UCA bushings. Recently acquired a 20ton press so should be able to press all of these out and back in with some rented tools used on the write ups, and as a last resort go to a "Plan B" and buy new LCAs. Try to do most of the work myself on this truck and keep it on a budget for a variety of reasons, but also because I have two teenagers in 2nd gen higher milage Tacomas and it helps to do suspension maintenance DIY when you have 3 trucks to keep up.

Will be doing a lot of studying before ordering all parts. My truck also has shocks that are roughly 60-70K old so plan to put on new Bilstein 4600s on all four corners, reusing my front springs while having those mounted with new top mount bushings (shop will do it). Will either put in new rear leaf springs kit or replace those bushings as well.

My question for the group is if anyone has tracked down the OEM bushings for the LCAs and figured out how to source those without going thru Toyota? I did that on the Carrier Bearing and replaced with the Spicer version on Amazon that $70 versus the $200 Toyota OEM labeled but the same part, and it has worked out great.

I see a Delphi version on Rock Auto DELPHITD4024W for the front bushings on LCA, and SUSPENSIAX50BU0273 for the rear bushing on LCA. I am just wondering if anyone had experience or success tracking down the OEM LCA bushings from, well, another reseller of the OEMs and avoid the Toyota markup.

Ride quality is subjective of course, but OEM ride quality is my goal here, along with less risk of squeaking and premature failure causing a redo of this whole project. Thanks in advance to anyone who replies and thanks for this write up.

 

I don't think the OEM LCA bushings are available from any 3rd party at a lower price. McGeorge Toyota Parts online will be the cheapest source for you.

 

McGeorge is 30% off but I can get from my local dealer at 25% off with no shipping and convenient to return parts if something didn't work out. Thanks for the reply! On the LCA bushings, I plan to buck up and pay for OEM bushings.