check your ball joints

I have Moog with the lifetime warranty and they are garbage. I have replaced both sides two times in the past 5 years because of play. I grease their zerks regularly but they still fail. If I could go back I would go OEM but since I dont pay for the replacements I continue to swap em every year or two.

 

Has the LBJ design changed on later gen Tacomas?

 

I have no idea. I sure hope so.

 

Yes the joint gets forced together instead of apart like the 1st gens

 

That's good to know. But of course, that doesn't help any of us.

 

The title for this thread totally should have read "Check your balls."

 

Great minds think alike lol

 

Really wish there was a way they could re engineer this part, but I don't think it's possible without changing the steering

 

A little like playing russian roulette.

 

There is its called a SAS conversion

 

Same thought I had. Shame.

 

that would involve changing the steering

 

OK guys, don't over exaggerate the issue. The stock suspension in my truck worked on the road for last 22 years and almost 320k miles. That is quite good by my book. I don't do "wheeling", just occasional low quality dirt roads (however some streets in Wroclaw, Poland can qualify for "wheeling"). If you use this truck for rougher ride and pushing the strength of the front suspension to the limit, maybe 100k miles would qualify for thorough inspection.

 

Not really, I check them regularly for play. They have to be pretty bad to fail in a catastrophic manner.

 

I just came from Toyota Service. Doing oil change and tire rotation (I'm not setup in my new place to do it at home yet) and ordering seat belts, which I couldn't bring from USA on a plane (explosive device restriction). I also asked to do the full inspection of the entire front end especially LBJ. They found some knocking inside the steering rack (it's been there since the day one or at least as long as I remember) and nothing else. All bushings and boots are in like new condition (not even surface cracks), all ball joints with zero play. Their recommendation was to "leave this alone, you will hear first before anything fails".

BTW this was the third "second opinion" I wanted to get just to be sure in case I don't know what to look for.
I'm good for the next 10k miles when the truck will be due for the next service.

This is 95.5 X-cab 4x4 with all factory (22 years old) front end (minus brakes and shocks of course) and 318k city miles (no more than 1k miles mild of road total). I guess first batch of 1st gen Tacoma got the best parts ever made.

 

I have a 2001 and I just had 2 ball joint failures that resulted in the wheels coming off. The first one on the passenger side. Rebuilt all the damage an bought Hi end Moog ball joints and installed on both sides. Now the drivers side just failed and the wheel came off in the middle of the road. I have about a 3 inch lift. This seems to have started happening after I replaced the shocks and coil springs. I really need to find out what is causing this so I have a safe truck to drive. Any ideas?

 

Buy OEM, not Moog. Moog are known to be of lower quality than the OEM ones.

 

I thought Moog was top of the line. Where can I get the OEM and will they work with my lift? Some of them did not press in and the moog did. Had to use the press tool. I think it could be something more than just the quality of the ball joint.

 

109,000 miles on mine still going strong! Going to definitely replace them soonish though.

 

Are you having upper or Lower ball joint failures?