LCA Popping / Creaking / Over torqued?

Does it make a lick of sense that an over tightened LCA cam bolt would cause the creaking and popping I'm getting?

Brief history:

Put on Kings over a year ago.

Took to dealer for alignment.

All okay for a year.

Took back in for 3rd member leak. Dipshits locked rear diff and could not get it to unlock, and replaced 3rd member. Why they felt the need to lock it up on a test drive on pavement (either that or they lied on their report) I have no idea.

Got truck back, pulling to right.

Took back in for alignment. They said it was out of alignment. Re-aligned. Drove good.

Somewhere around this time I got the creaking and popping. I mentioned creaking to them (as well as a unresolved mystery rattle in the ass end), and got the "truck has been modified" bullshit.

Thought I'd try and isolate it and make sure it wasn't something with the Kings, sway bar, etc. Thought ball joint, but I hit the LCA bushings first with some teflon lubricant (before I messed with ball joint) so I could rule those out before I moved on, as that seemed to be where it was coming from. After a night to sit, the creak went away for a good couple months.

It is back now, with a vengeance. Have sprayed the shit out of these things over the last week, working spray into every conceivable location, and it has diminished, almost vanished, but pops back up depending on the trucks mood, sometimes quite loudly over subsequent days.

There's no way this is not the LCA bushings. It was creaking for about 2 weeks, and went away overnight after being sprayed. Went almost completely away this time after a spray and soak overnight, but is back within 2 days. I have not sprayed anything else.

Figured they did not tighten the cams to spec, and went under to check them out tonight. Both cam bolts tight as hell. Got the front to move at about 100 lbs. Re-tightened.

The back, cannot get that thing to budge. Torque wrench at 165 lbs, and still hitting the torque achieved indicator. Afraid to push it beyond there without a spare cam alignment bolt on hand.

Prior to today, they are the only ones who have had their tools on those alignment cam bolts.

Is it possible this over tightened bolt is causing this creaking and popping? Knowing how these things are constructed (a sleeve inside a rubber bushing which is inside the outer bushing shell. Does not make sense to me that an over-torque condition would be causing the noise. What am I missing here?

Thoughts? My damn Toyota is rolling down the road creaking and popping like a rusted out '76 F150.

Thinking about taking it to another dealer closer by, explaining it to them, and telling them I simply don't trust that dealership to work on the truck any longer.

If that doesn't work, next step will be pulling the LCA and putting in new bushings or a new LCA so I don't have to screw with bushing removal, and get it re-aligned. Again.

 

Creaking in my experience is from bad LCA bushings (if you've pinpointed it to the LCAs)

Popping from the LCAs usually occurs when they're under-torqued, never heard of them being over torqued before but I guess it's possible?

 

I'm in a similar situation as you. Chased a squeak to either the lca bushings or lower heim joint on my icons. Started out by some popping that would occur when backing into a parking spot, torqued the lca to spec. Stopped the popping. Then a few weeks later the squeaking started. Check the lbj for play or excess grease, looked fine. But I could feel vibrations/squeak in the lca and coilover shaft when cycling the suspension up and down. Decided to replace the icons cause they needed to be rebuilt anyways. If that doesn't work I'll look into replacing the lca. This set only has 75k on it, already replaced lcas a few years ago for being seized. Might look into Moog if that's the case.