Advice on Shop Findings

I've hit some snags. I can't separate the upper ball joint from the uppercontrol arm on the passenger side. Cotter pin and castle nut are off, damn thing just won't push through the arm.

On the driver's side I can't get the damn castle nut off at all. The nut is starting to warp and sheer as well, I'm not sure what to do. I've saturated both in WD40 to try and get in there to loosen it up.

Anyone run into this before?


On the upside, my inner tie rods are in great shape, so I will not be replacing them.

 

I think they're taking you for a ride. Find another mechanic. They're trying to scare you into fixing things you probably don't need. Fix what you intended to fix first and go from there. The one way I know for sure that my battery isn't good anymore is when I try to start my car and it fails to start.

 

Well, it took three days, but I replaced the following:

• Upper Ball Joints
• Lower Ball Joints
• Outer Tie Rods

The inner tie rods were still pretty stiff, so I opted not to replace those. We ran into a lot of snags that kept us from getting more done. My biggest mistake was buying an

TEKTON 5702 Gear Puller, 4-Piece

awful jaw pulled set from Tekton. Under no circumstances should you buy this kit.

You can use it on the outer tie rod ball joint. That's it. You can't use it on a single component other than that. I'm going to return that and get the OTC kit that Timmy the Toolman has. Two minutes to pop those ball joints out vs having to pull the whole damn arm out and beat it with a hammer until it pops out. It took hours.

Another bummer was the alignment was way off when I was done. I counted the threads on the outer tie rods like Timmy the Toolman recommended, but must have messed it up somewhere. Anyway, we ended up using string along the length of the car to align the front wheels with the back wheels. It's not perfect, but I want to get the lower control arms done before I pay for an alignment.

However, even with the little work we did this weekend the ride has improved SIGNIFICANTLY. I really didn't expect much because I assumed the shimmy was coming from my worn UCA and LCA bushings. It turns out all of those ball joints were completely wrecked by torn boots and tons of slop (they were original). Replacing them almost entirely removed my front end shimmy while driving and while braking! Only bummer is now the truck pulls pretty hard to the left when braking, and a little to the right while driving. Not terrible, but I'm hoping an alignment will get it sorted when we're done.

Anyway, taking this weekend off, but next weekend I think I'll work on the control arms. Not sure if I'll make it through both sets in one weekend, so I'll likely do the uppers one weekend and then do the suspension and lowers the following weekend. Even that may need to be split into different weekends. I hope I can get it done before it gets oppressively hot.

 

Still moving forward! Over the past three days I've replaced the following:

• Lower control arm bushings
• Steering rack bushings
• Intermediate steering shaft
• Front OME 881 coils and nitro chargers installed

Ran into a sucky issue yesterday where I burned and hacksawed out the upper control arm bushings only to find the ones I ordered were too small. I went to NAPA to get some bushings from them and they were also too small! Only thing I can think of at this point is the previous owner put on aftermarket arms. Since one of them had a rust hole in it I opted to buy new ones from toyota which I'm picking up today. Interested to learn more about the arms that were on there, they're not stamped at all.

Anyway, after I get those new arms bolted on, I'll get the front end torqued to spec and then move on to the leaf springs and rear shocks! Pretty excited to have all of this done, I suspect the truck will drive better than when I bought it at 141,000 miles. Pics to follow.

 

The truck will almost certainly ride like new.

Yeah, I had trouble with the upper ball joints too. Part of it was trusting a method I saw online of using a 3 arm puller.

http://www.bajataco.com/tech/control_arms_03.html

That worked getting the UCA and BJ separated, and removing the BJ from the spindle had marginal success (had to cut the arm of the BJ off), but putting them in using this guy's method was an absolute nightmare - so much so that I never actually did both sides. I used bailing wire wrapped around the arms and pulled tight, but even with that, the arms still popped off a few times. I learned, as you did, to just get the correct tool. I'm not sure what else you can use though, to separate the upper BJ from the control arm. The "BFH method never worked for me.

When it came time to do the uppers again (6 or 7 years later), I remembered that lesson and got the proper tool at the start. The difference this time was that I was installing total chaos upper control arms with uniballs. Still needed the press to remove the old BJ, and to install the adapter cups for the UCAs. I put them in the freezer overnight, and they went in like soft butter with the proper BJ press.

For your UCA bushings, as long as you still have the outer sleeve still in place, you can get Energy Suspension poly bushings. They slide right in using the old outer sleeve. If you took out the outer sleeve, then you'll want either OEM or I think Whiteline or something like that makes bushings. You need to have those pressed in, whereas the ES poly bushings just slide in.

 

Yeahhh I took the outer sleeves out to get the OEM replacements in. I annexed my parents garage to do the work, so unfortunately I can't wait for any shipments to come in . Just crazy to me that the OEM replacements don't fit. The only thing I can think of is that the arms I have are aftermarket.


At least the new arms should bolt up without any issues.

 

I looked at your bushings from your ealier link. It looks like those might be for the 5 lug 2wd... If you look at the exploded view, that's a 5 lug suspension.

I tried messing around with the link and selecting my 2004 as the "my vehicle" and there was no mention of selecting a 4x4, and seems to lump 4runners, S-runner and prerunners into a single category.

 

Would the 5-lug UCA fit on the 6-lug trucks? If so, that would explain a lot.

I didn't end up buying from them, I ordered these guys:

48632-35070/4863235070 - Arm Bushing For Rear Arm For Toyota

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HCP1Z2S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Napa's bushings were also the same size.

EDIT:
Doesn't look like the 5 lug arms fit. They're totally different based on this post I found:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/5-lug-suspension-rejuvenation.559661/

Back to being confused. I'll take pictures of my old arms next to the new ones when I pick them up tonight.

2nd edit:
I did use the part number for those bushings though, and you're right about the diagram. Unfortunately that site doesn't seem to have the diagrams for the 6 lug upper control arms. Does anyone have a part number for that?

 

Yeah, 5 lug and 6 lug are entirely different suspension. It's odd that other link didn't seem to distinguish between them.

I don't have #'s, but @gunny1005 works at Camelback Toyota and they have pretty great deals on OEM stuff. I've actually never bought anything from them, but I've seen more than enough positive feedback from other members here that I have no problem recommending it.

https://www.camelbacktoyota.com/parts/index.htm

 

I've been working with Camelback, I don't think they just sell the bushings but I'll check with them.

I found the part numbers based on a diagram they sent me a while back. Looks like 4863059045 is what the 6 lug uses.

 

Toyota doesn't consider the bushings to be user serviceable, so they don't sell the bushings separately. They're on Amazon but they won't get here until Thursday at the earliest.

 

O'Reillys carries bushings, but there's no way of knowing if they're for the 5-lug or the 6-lug. If they don't fit I'll return them and get the new arms from Toyota.

Boy I'd rather pay $60 per bushing vs $680 for new arms.

 

Doesn't Whiteline make replacement bushings? easier to pop them in from what I understand

 

Yep, those are the ones I eluded to in an earlier post.

I don't know about "easier to pop them in" as they need to be pressed in just like OEM.

Yeah, don't ever buy new arms unless there is a compelling reason, like it's cracked or bent.

Sorry to make you go down the rabbit hole of OEM bushings, I didn't realize you couldn't get them (at least easily, lol). I guess that's why I usually see either the whitelines come up or the ES poly bushings.

I think the whitelines are like $60 a set (?)

 

Awesome work hombre! That's no small feat my man. Glad you persevered and stuck with doing it instead of dumping it to a shop. It feels so rewarding getting jobs like those done on our cars

 

Whiteline doesn't make upper arm bushings as far as I know, otherwise I totally would have gone with them. The lowers are a different size as well, so they wouldn't have fit in the uppers.

No worries. You were absolutely right, plus $64 is wayyyy better than $680 for new arms from Camelback. I messed up on my research and didn't confirm the UCA bushings I bought were for this truck. It ended up that O'Reilly's was the only store in the valley (that I could find on short notice) that had bushings that fit in stock. I'll get the part numbers posted when I get back home to help anyone else who might run into this issue. But the O'Reilly bushings went in with my improvised socket press like butter.

So the upper arms are in and I was able to drive to work this morning! Even with half a new suspension the truck drives a million times better! It no longer turns like a boat, the 881s and nitrochargers are whisper quiet, and the steering isn't binding anymore because I replaced the intermediate steering shaft. Everything on the front is tight, and as an added bonus is my tires no longer rub and make a terrible grinding noise when I'm turning hard.

Unfortunately I didn't get the rear leafs or shocks replaced, so the front is a solid 5" higher than the back. Rolled into work blasting low rider this morning. Hoping I can get those on tonight after work. I'll update the thread with all the pictures later. It's been a ball busting five days, but the shop wanted ~$4900 and I got all of this done with an OME suspension kit for ~$2200. Tally-ho for Tacomaworld and Timmy the toolman!

Thanks! The sense of accomplishment is huge . Plus I learned so much about the truck in the process. At some point there won't be a bolt or nut on the truck that I haven't turned. Thinking I'll take the GF up to the grand canyon and over to meteor crater to break everything in and maybe get muddy on some forest roads on the way back.

 

Nice job! your lift situation reminds me of someone else (@BartMaster1234 @Sperrunner). As long as you don't drive around for months like that, you won't get made fun of too much.

 

Did it once I’ll do it again.



I drove that truck in some weird states of being put together. I drove it without a rear driveshaft in 4HI for two weeks while I figured out my rear driveline situation out after my 4WD swap. I was probably the only FWD Tacoma in the world.

 

Nah, I doubt that. I drove around without my rear driveline for a bit while I swapped it with a buddy of mine's driveline (troubleshooting a clunk that turned out to be the intake system clunking on the heat shield).

 

That thing liked to grind without the rear driveshaft. Was scary shifting it into Drive from Park.