Steering knuckle removal

Pretty straight forward? Is there anything under load that's gonna bite me like spring tension? I'm sure I'll need an alignment afterwards. Thanks.

 

The knuckle itself isn't. The LCA is from the strut. Just remove the LBJ bolts with a jack under the LBJ. When they are gone, lower the jack pulling the LCA and LBJ away from the knuckle.

Why are you removing it?

 

Steering knuckle? Steering knuckles are normally found on solid axle suspensions like a jeep front end.

Our IFS trucks have a spindle that everything mounts to, wheel, brakes, axles, wheel bearings, upper and lower BJs and their control arms. But you would not normally have to replace the spindle unless you bent it. The spindle itself has no moving parts to wear out.

Are you referring to a ball joint,either upper or lower?

 

bad wheel bearing my guess. I just replaced those and ball joints while I had it all apart. wcp6011 is correct just use the jack method. I had trouble separating the ball joints though. Use a 3lb hammer to tap the outer part of the ball joint on the lower control arm itself and it should separate. I even had to put light pressure on the rotor with the jack to convince it. DO NOT hammer on the threads of the ball joints. And also use quality jack stands to hold the weight of the vehicle while doing this I actually used two per side just for safety purposes.

 

Spindle! Got my terminology messed up and yep, wheel bearings. Thank you guys for the advice. I'm going to tackle this mid week.

 

Is it just the bearing in there or is there C clips and seals as well. Just trying to figure out what parts I need to buy/order before I take the spindle in.

 

get a new bearing if you want to change the dust seals you can I didnt they looked fine just dont beat them up reinstalling them. the seals are expensive. i bought oem bearings from toyota of newnan. Best price ever on oem parts. there might be a rust ring where the seal goes in take some sandpaper and knock it off there or the seal may give you trouble on reassembly. Do this before you have a shop press that bearing in you dont want grit in your new bearing assembly. I had them dip my whole knuckle in the solvent tank. 40 bucks for pressing and cleaning both sides I thought it was a good deal. the oem bearings are 75 each

 

Thank you very much! So I can just pull the dust seals out myself before I take the spindle in to the shop?

 

Yes, they just press in and you can probably just use a seal puller to get them back out but I've never been able to remove them intact. They tend to rust weld to the stuff around them.