Alignment tabs...

The bushings come out pretty easy in my opinion (compared to others). There is a hole cast into the LCA, big enough for a nice punch. Once you punch the bushing, it collapses, and will press out nicely. As for the tabs - isn't the techs fault at all. Everyone of them does it - blame the salt.

It's best to remove everything around 50,000 miles, lube stuff up, and reinstall. Also, if you torque everything properly, the vehicle will stay in alignment - the tabs help but it shouldn't move out.

 

@pauldotcom absolutely the salt and weather in general porked me.
However, theres no way that the bolt with the bent tab was torqued properly. I loosened it with a ratchet and box wrench. Not being Arnold, or a reasonable facimily there of; I can say that with reasonable certainty.
They should have told me the hardware was seized, rather than telling me that the wheel is straight and you won't notice the bad camber and caster.

 

Say hello to my little friend....
Swapped out the other LCA yesterday.
Can't get the other tabs welded in for a couple/three weeks; so I gotta get this aligned.

I didn't have luck and the air hammer was a no go. It just bounced in the rubber.
That can of worms I mentioned earlier....passenger side wheel bearing. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Wtf....

Edit: the napa pre assembled units are warranteed! Psyche!

Edit again: didn't mention the passenger side upper ball joint...

 

I had another alignment done yesterday and they mentioned one of the tabs bent. They werent kidding! This is more like, folded over! Just the front driver side tabs are like this. The rest seem to be fine. Thoughts?




Alignment numbers looked like this afterwards:

Camber 0.5 -- 0.2
Caster: 2.8 -- 2.8
Toe: 0.01 -- 0.01

 

Those tabs have bent over on any Toyota I've ever owned. I've always run a bead of weld behind them once I get 'em square again. Never an issue after that.

 

Yaaaa, that couple, 3 weeks... There's since been a new tax deduction added to my friends form 1. His first, so he deserves some time to bond with his mini me. They go from kittens to cats to quick...