Oregon and Washington BS thread

Welcome!!

 

SUUUP!

 

OK, well this weekend was a life experience.

For the past two weeks I have been lining up plans to do my lower ball joints. Based on recommendations from the DIY guides, they said to do bushings on the LCAs as well.

I tried to line up a shop to do it, but my guy up here didn't send me a quote until too late, and my guy in Salem was out over the weekend. As a result, Dad and I fired up the courage to do it ourselves.

I bought Moog ball joints from Rock Auto. These have a greaseable zerk fitting, which is an improvement over stock.
I was going to get bushings from Rock Auto as well, but they sold out. Thankfully, Jorge at Camelback Toyota came through, and gave me a deal that beat all other competition!

Dad meanwhile bought every tool Harbor Freight had for doing bushings and ball joints. Our thought was to have all the tools ready and take back what we didn't use. We had a ball joint service kit (looks like a giant c-clamp), a front end service kit, a pickle fork, and some other stuff.

We started Saturday morning. Put the whole front on jack stands and started with the passenger side.
Got the LCA out, no probs. Decided to start with the bushings, then work on the BJ last.
Well, we found out we didn't have the right tools at all, because the bushings have a lip that is wider than the hole for the LCA, so you can't grip it to push it out. Even if we could, the tools from Harbor Fright don't match all our bushings - only the ball joint. We proceeded to cut and drill the rubber to try pushing out the core and then cut out the remainder, but there was no budging that core (we busted a 3 arm puller, literally broke the metal).

At 1 pm and out of options, we raced around town for tools or an open machine shop. Couldn't find anything. Ended up going home at about 5pm. On the way home, we visited a neighbor at the end of the block. Talking with him, he said, "yeah, Bob at the end of the road has his own machine shop, probably has the tools you need"


Indeed, Bob had just what we needed - a 20 ton press (kind of looks like a rudimentary version of this. Ours was a bottle jack on top of the ram plate with a drop-out section in the middle for stuff to fall down). He didn't have the exact stuff we needed to properly support the arm for pressing, but we had various steel blocks to shim it up the way we needed.
Those ball joints were frozen in there like nothing we've ever seen. That bottle jack was doing serious work, and the bushing core would sink halfway down before the bushing would extract. When the bushings came out, KABOOM! They would fly down like shot out of a cannon. The ball joint wasn't as bad, but still took a lot of force.
I don't have pictures right now, but the bushings are basically a rubber core surrounded by metal, and the metal slips inside the metal ring on the LCA. After 60k miles, these bushings were rusted in there, which is no wonder why we had to use the press.

Getting the bushings in was much easier, which we also did on the press. It still took a lot of pressure, but we greased everything up in copper anti-seize grease for protection and better install.

We called it a night at about 8:00 or so.

Sunday was more of the same. We started at about 9am, tapping the ball joints for hte zerks, putting in the zerks, putting on the passenger side and taking off the driver side. I had to leave at 10 for a date, so we stopped, but picked up again around 1pm.
Of course, we couldn't remember exactly what pieces of scrap metal we used last night, and in what configuration, so it took us some figuring to undo the next set (which were frozen in even worse). We got that done about 5pm.
We got the driver side put all on and started lowering the driver side. When we got to the ground, we noticed that the suspension wasn't flexing. We raised it up, loosened all the cam bolts, prodded the control arms, and lowered again, all to the same effect. At this point we started panicking, because we raised that side up and a lowered the other, which did the same thing. We couldn't figure out what to do, and devised a plan for removing the shock setup, taking the coils off and trying to compress by hand to see if the the shocks were froze. Knowing this was going to take several more hours, we started heading in to eat dinner. Just as we started taking gloves off, etc., I thought that we might as well lower the whole truck down and see if the suspension would free up slowly as we sat inside.

As soon as a little weight started hitting BOTH tires, the suspension started compressing! Apparently the weight on one side isn't enough. We re-timed the cam bolts and tightened the whole mess down to to torque spec, and went inside about 7pm.

If any of you want your bushings done, you can all screw off. Never again unless I have a full on shop.

 

Lol. The trick to getting them out is to use a torch.

 

x2. I was a bit disappointed when I found out ours couldn't fit 15s.

Nice Mike! Sounds like a hellish weekend for you! Hey when you have time can you help me do MY bushings as well? Beer and pizza

 

Probably a stupid question. But with tool chest that have 2 handles, do you have to use both of them to open the lid? Or can you operate the locking mechanism by only one handle?

Edit:

Reason I ask is because I am looking between these two chest.

30" UWS black chest
http://uwsta.com/products/productdetail/30%22+Standard+Chest-BLK/part_number=TBC-30-BLK/5405.0.1.1.67260.84444.1151.84448.0?pp=12&

Or the 37" DeeZee black chest
http://www.deezee.com/products/398/...ts/Red_Label_Utility_Chest_(37_)_-_Black.html

 

Sounds a lot like when I rebuilt my front end. Wish I would've posted this earlier. I took a chisel and hammer and bent the lip on the bushing lip back so I could get a balljoint tool, or whatever its called, to grip the control arm. I let them soak overnight in multiple kinds of break free products. Sounds like yours where worse than mine, but here's a pic of how I did it.

 

You can rent one at AutoZone/Baxter/O'rielys, Etc

 

You sure. I have seen the other style for rent before

 

Zach - that comes part of . I found the joint separator to be the only thing of use (used it for the ball joint - careful with that, I had it pop off like a cannon, too)
Autozone basically gives you . Typically, this is the easier, safer, way to do it, but Toyota LCAs can't use them for crap because the rings you need aren't included (plus that lip Robert shows). There's an expanded set you need that costs another $100, which Autozone doesn't carry.

Robert - We sprayed the living hell out of things, too. We tried a 3 arm puller and had a 4 foot cheater bar on it and eventually busted the metal arms off the puller. This shot is right before we busted it. The BJ is actually the part that came out easiest for the press on both arms, surprisingly.



This is pretty much exactly what we used in the end, and this worked. Like I said, the bushings came out like they were shot from a gun.



Here's the bastards. The first one is where we drilled and cut it before giving up on hand tools, the rest were taken straight to the press.

 

I used that same press to compress my springs onto my shocks. Was sketchy.

 

I couldn't have said it better myself. melt those bitches.

 

Thats funny because the only way i could get the pin out of my shackles was by heating the bitchez up with a torch!

 

Didn't have a torch, either. Tim's the only person I know that has one and knows how to not kill himself with it.

 

Alcohol + Match = torch

 

= trip with me to the Burn Center. Trust me, you don't want to go there as a patient

 

I think he missed the part about 'not killing himself'


Damn Mitch you are an expensive date.

 

Gotta pay the bills brother

 

I doubt they would fit..

http://corvallis.craigslist.org/spo/3279915188.html

 

my size