LCA Question

Yep, got the nut freed up, I just can't spin the bolt inside the bushing or hammer the bolt out. It doesn't need to spin much, just enough so I can bring it to Toyota and tell them everything's freed up, align my truck please!

No worries on the pricing, I got a price from Jorge at Camelback Toyota, I just didn't know if there was an OEM replacement I should be looking at instead.

 

Do you take your truck off-road? My LCAs were more than likely bent and my bushings were seized. I went ahead and purchased the whole LCA assembly, including the lower ball joint. I had that all replaced and aligned at one time.

Everything is much better now, but my wallet is lighter.

 

these bushings seize because there is no grease on a metal to metal contact point on the alingment cams....
its a very very common problem


and you can use a 4' cheater bar on your 1/2 " drive your socket will snap before the bolt will.....

 

The problem isn't that you can't break them free, it's that the cams with usually break, inside the bushing, before loosening.

 

Not really, at least nothing that would lead to a bent LCA. My truck is mostly a pavement pounder and doesn't see much more than a rough dirt road.

Good to know! I've got Craftsman sockets so I can get it replaced in the event I do actually snap it.

 

So you mean the issue is I'll tear the rubber up before I break the metal/metal seizing?

 

The cam is a two piece cam, so sometimes one side of the cam breaks free leaving one side stuck. When this happens you have to cut it out/off.

Also sometimes the bushing is rusted to the LCA, as seen in the related threads, so you have to cut the rubber completely out.

 

the front are the worst...they have a spline that the alingment cams bolt to.....these seem to seize up first and are the worst to remove...

you can see spline in pic above^^^^
then the bolt runs through it.....
that sleve seizes to the metal bushing in lca....

 

negavtive

 

mike u live in the salt belt so its not bent unless u were jumping it or some shit...
like i said earlier its a very common problem......
once you get them un siezed grease them up asap... and do it every 6 months or so.....
to prevent it from happening again....

another member here freed his by using a 4' lever on a 1/2 breaker bar and standing and jumping on it.....

 

this is the cam that mounts to that sleve above for the 2 fronts


the rears are just a blot straight through the bushing.....

 

Yes, that can happen.

It's weird that your dealer won't replace bushings and insists on replacing the entire LCA. That's not a "Toyota" policy. At least one dealer near me was willing to press out an old bushing and press in a new one if I brought the LCA in hand to them.

At the end of the day, it turned out my bushings weren't ruined, and something else was causing the noise that I'd originally blamed on LCA bushings.

 

meh... even if the rubber tears it will function all the same...and believe me your not tearing the rubber

No sides it's either;
A) The cam bolt freezes to the cam sleeve (front)
B) The cam sleeve fuses to the bushing (front)
C) Everything is fused together (front)
D) The bolt fuses to the bushing (rear)

It doesn't help that Toyota puts the part number sticker on the bolt so that shit gums up if not removed.



front




rear




all lubed up

 

It is Toyota policy for the dealers near me. The LCA's are so crappy they don't want to work on them. Chances are if your LCA bushings are shot so will be your BJ so they figure it's cheaper to have you buy a new one then stock parts and put labor into replacing them. When I did mine I called and drove to the local dealers to get pricing just for kicks and talk to them. None of them would replace a bushing or BJ only.


I also noticed on a couple trucks that the torque from the factory for these bolts is WAY over what it's supposed to be. We would jack the truck up, take a tire off, take the shock off, and the LCA would just sit there looking at you. If you pushed it down it pushed back simulating a seized bushing.

In closing the entire design is pure shit and needs to be fixed I'm not doing this shit every 3 years so hopefully preventive maintenance will keep mine from seizing again or this suckers gonna be at the bottom of a lake.

 

What was the source of your noise ?

 

a diving canuk sedin sister got stuck under his skid plate

 

That wasn't it

You think I wouldn't think of that DB ?

 

same toyo policy here....
ball joint went bad they changed the whole lca.....
bushing seized change lca's

 

The bushings and lower ball joint are sold as one unit from Toyota. You cannot buy just a lower ball joint from them. The parts catalog doesn't even list a price.

You are right, when the lower ball join goes bad, it is probably time for your bushings to be serviced, so they replace the whole thing.

$$$$$

 

Damn guys, thanks for the pictures! It's nice to see how these things go together so I know what to wrench on.

I went for round 2 and now it's truck 2, me 0.

I dosed it with penetrating oil several times, wrenched on the bolt, tapped the end with a hammer to see if it'd vibrate loose, and put a piece of wood on the end of the bolt and wailed on it with a hammer. None of which worked so I dosed it again and will try it again tomorrow.