Lower ball joint failure

Most all of the failures I've seen...
are due to the retaining bolts loosening or breaking.

Tho' ball joints wear out and can create excessive slop...
thereby effecting the alignment specifications/requirements
Loose or worn BJ's gives most folk a reason for their replacement.

Ball joints generally don't separate unless an impact were involved
or the retaining bolts came loose and allowed for excessive movement.

In other words... inspect those ball joint bolts on occasion
and be sure they are still tight.

Locktite does well for keeping the BJ bolts secure.

 

I got my fronts used, and rebuilt them. Huuuuge savings there. Jumped on a group buy from @Downsouth Motorsports for my rears. The hit to the wallet is rough, but worth it.

 

Kings bro

 

Is that the solo motorsports relocation?

Was looking at that one but was hearing at tire stuff it hits the shock body?

Unless you run a skinny tire or spacer

 

Yep, it's the Solo kit. With 2.0's and a small spacer you wouldn't hit. But I have 2.5's and no spacer, so it rubs at full stuff. Not bad, but enough to leave small black marks.

 

Yea I wanted the 2.5s also but kept hearing about the rubbing issue, just went with the bamf relocation

 

Doesnt BAMF recommend 2.0's as well? I know total chaos does also.

 

No I run 2.5s no problems

 

True, the more I read into LBJ failure the more I'm seeing cases where people just had new ones installed, but they or the techs didn't torque them down properly or didn't use lock-tite on the bolts and they ended up failing. Definitely worth double checking if someone else did the work.

 

Probably the most important bolts on the truck. The weight of the truck hangs from those 4 bolt heads and all of the steering torque is transferred through them.

I plan to check mine next time i have the wheels off. I torqued them and used blue locktite.

 

What size tire you running and what BS wheels? Also what bumps are you running? I see an aluminum spacer added to the top stop right?

 

Stock bumps. We added the spacer so that it bumps correctly until I can afford some 2" cans from King.

Running 256/75r16 KO2's on SCS F5's. I think they're the 3.5" bs.

 

I just noticed i have play in mine. picked up a ac delco replacement as they are made in japan. so hopefully its better then some of the cheaper crap lol

 

I replaced mine last year (about 15k ago) and they are already bad according to the tech at a buddies shop. He even send me a video and they look toast by the amount of play. How could genuine toyota lbjs only last 15k?! Im shocked....

 

damn that sucks dude, I got new OEM LBJs put in about 20k miles ago...maybe I should give them a check

 

Yea I would definitely give them a check. Ill tag you where I posted the video also. After I threw them on I figured they were going to be good for at least about 100k miles.... Guess not

 

If your angles are extreme it can lead to shorter life as well.

 

Lbj angles?

 

It's a 50-J safety recall. I just had mine done a few weeks ago...12 years late lol.

If you have a dealership, call them up and ask them to check your vin against records for the 50J recall that was issued in 2005. If it hasn't been performed, then you get new LBJs. They may not do it if you've got a lot of aftermarket shit going on down there though.

 

Well, you're lifted with gigantic tires and probably do a fair bit of off-roading. That's adding a lot of stress to stock LBJs. Still though, 15-20k is pretty low even for the added abuse.