LCA Bushings: OEM, Energy Suspension, Whiteline

Cool I have a bit of a shimmy and some weird tire wear in the front and don't want to wear these brand new tires out prematurely. Been thinking it was TREs or balljoints, to no avail. I guess this is were I will go next. Great write up, too bad it is winter now.

 

And to clear things up, if they are seized and need to be cut out, which parts must be replaced, just the bolts?

 

On mine, I only had to cut on one of the four, and the bolt came out, and it was the sleeve that was rusted. I think this is quite normal. Sometimes the bolt will be frozen as well and you'll have to cut through it as well. Stick with OEM for the replacements, and you also should be able to reuse most of the original hardware.

 

I got lucky with mine, didn't have any frozen or rusted bolts. Although the LCA sleeves had a little corrosion in them but wire wheel and the poly lube helped.

I treated my truck to an under-body oil bath before each winter for the first 7 years. I attribute the layer of oil to protecting all the parts

 

Bad rear main seal?

 

If you disconnect the shock and lower ball joint from the LCA then you should be able to move the LCA freely. If it binds then it means that one or both cam sleeves are frozen to the inside of the bushings. It is usually the thin cam sleeves and bushings that are beyond salvaging.

The bolts should typically be fine. I stripped the threads on mine trying to adjust the alignment before I figured out the cam sleeves were frozen.

The nut (cam plate) may be fine but I replaced all mine since I stripped the threads trying to adjust the alignment.

 

The sleeve is available by itself from the Dealer? DO they come with the Whitelines?

 

@2scars The Whitelines come pre-assembled with inner and outer sleeves, end washers, and poly bushings like shown in the first post.

 

There's some confusion here.
The bushing has an inner and outer sleeve. One of the cam plates also has a sleeve, the other cam plate is just a plate and also serves as the nut for the pivot bolt. The "bolt" runs thru the cam plate sleeve and screws into the other cam plate. When the cam plate sleeve rusts solid to the inner bushing sleeve the whole deal must be cut out.
Cam plate sleeve is best procured from Toyota. Seen in bottom of pic below, the other plate/nut is not shown.



It lives inside the bushing and is needed with all types of replacement bushings.

 

Reason I asked is because I have ordered all new bolts and plates and didn't see a part number for the cam plate sleeves. Does this come with the plate in your experience, or is it a separate part number? Just don't want to be missing anything when the time comes to do the work. Got my Whitelines in yesterday, and have an order in with Camelback Toyota for the rest.

 

@2scars The cam with attached sleeve in the first @Dirty Pool pic above is one piece. You also need the plate which mates with it and the through bolt which are also both separate (for OEM).

The Whiteline bushing kit doesn't include any of those.

 

Is there any real indicator besides putting a pry bar on teh bushings to be sure that they are gone? My truck pings a little when going from reverse to stopped, and this morning she was popping a little when the brakes were applied going forward. What were your indications?

Thanks again.

 

define "ping" "popping" as that can mean a whole slew of things unrelated to bushings and more like drive-line issues

 

Well, I dunno, I have replaced everything but the UBJ on the driver side and I still feel some looseness while driving. Everything is tight, but it clunks a little over bumps when going slow, and there is still some weird tire wear on that side. I have been noticing the pop when I drop off my daughter in the morning, reverse to the right into a turn around at my in laws, and as I come to a stop I get a clunky pop kind of a thing. I even replaced the OME shock on that side to try and rule things out.

 

What indications were yall getting?

 

I replaced mine because they had 200K on them and I couldn't adjust the alignment. They weren't making any noise.

 

Hmmmm.

 

Well mine have 270,000 on them, I guess it would just be prudent to try this now that almost everything else is done. The truck also wanders a bit. Not bad but noticeable, I think it has to do with the alignment not being great also.

 

Thanks to everyone whose chimed in so far!

I think I'm about to get into this project as last time I had an alignment they told me all four bolts were seized. I never checked myself. I'm going to poke around before ordering parts, but I've been reading up in the mean time. Im about to order a full OME kit and want to get this squared away.

I looked up the OEM parts from a parts list .pdf I got from this site somewhere and I want to check with you all about the cam bolts.
These are for 95-00. I read a few people say they switched back from aftermarket cam bolts to OEM so Im thinking these are a safe bet.

It looks like I'd use the same three parts for the front and rear LCA cam bolts. Parts 36 37 and 38. Is that what it looks like to you?



I'm thinking that I'll want the Whitelines because they are a full replacement with the outer sleeve and they are way cheaper than OEM. I read that the MOOG bushings were crapping out in 40k for the 2nd gens. Whats the latest from everyone who's replaced their bushings and cam bolts?

Thanks again for all this great info. Looks fun!

James

 

Be sure the Whitelines and everything are clean when you put it all together. I just completely tore mine down and cleaned everything because the squeaking was bugging me. Used large amount of SuperLube this time and now it is completely silent. Be sure and torque the cam bolts.



This stuff is really amazing. It is plays nice with poly urethane while most dino greases don't.