Lower Control Arms -- Rebush or Replace? (4 Viewers)
- Thread starter HomersCanyonero
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Jiggle@#$? Is that you?? Welcome back!
$250 a piece off partsouq isn't bad to me. KDSS 470 arms are $400 there. OEM arms might last 300000 miles if driven sedately, I doubt moog will match that relative to the cost even.
My OEM arms had cracked bushings and floppy LBJs at 145k. They might have kept going but the performance was definitely degraded.
I pulled mine at 180 and the bushings were good visibly and still had little give. The LBJ could move easily but had no play.
Not gonna say leaving them for 300k is a great idea but a lot of high mile toyota have never had stuff like LCA's done.
I have KDSS on my 470 so $800 for a pair of arms is out of the question. I have already installed 555 LBJs into my OEM arms which are sitting in the 130k but the bushings are smoked.
I saw RedNexus used Moog and that was my inspiration. I can always keep my factory arms for later use, but if the Moog arm, and bushing is decent, I can always move my 555s over to those arms. Would love to go with a Moog 460 arm and save a ton of cash.
I saw RedNexus used Moog and that was my inspiration. I can always keep my factory arms for later use, but if the Moog arm, and bushing is decent, I can always move my 555s over to those arms. Would love to go with a Moog 460 arm and save a ton of cash.
Here are my Moog LCA LBJs and bushings after ~30K of use. Zero issues. The greaseable joint does puke a bit of grease past the lower seal when I grease it at oil changes - just like any other greseable U-joint or slip yolk. When compared side-by-side the Moog LCAs are near-exact replica of the OEM UCA's, including the bushings. I'd get them again, but will also update this thread and my build thread if I have an issue with them in the future so there is a record of how long they actually do last. I have no idea of if these will need replacement at 60K or make it to 100K+ - only time will tell.
My GX does get wheeled and used harder than many, so these have seen a lot of non-pavement miles (washboard roads, occasionally getting a bit of air, lots of rocks, etc). I'm also lifted ~2.5" in the front. Since these have been good to me, we put a pair on a buddy's 1st gen Tundra (albeit with OEM Toyota LBJs given how failure-prone that style is) and they were also exact replicas of the OEM LCAs. They saved him a few hundred bucks as well.
My GX does get wheeled and used harder than many, so these have seen a lot of non-pavement miles (washboard roads, occasionally getting a bit of air, lots of rocks, etc). I'm also lifted ~2.5" in the front. Since these have been good to me, we put a pair on a buddy's 1st gen Tundra (albeit with OEM Toyota LBJs given how failure-prone that style is) and they were also exact replicas of the OEM LCAs. They saved him a few hundred bucks as well.
I just replaced both LCA's on GX470 (@135k, non-KDSS, all original parts) with OEM Toyota 48069/48068-60010, purchased@local dealer for $900. After reading some on this site and watching several youtube videos, I saw there was usually some amount of drama associated with separating the ball joint from the ball joint "bracket" ("Attachment, Front Lower Ball Joint" = ~6" long metal part with two large screws that the ball joint presses into, affixed with a castle nut). I do not have a pickle fork or a separator tool but this was straightforward:
I marked the alignment tabs, unscrewed everything, removed the entire lower control arm with bracket attached. I put the LCA on the ground with the ball joint resting vertically on a plastic [tree] felling wedge (any relatively hard flat object would work) so the "bracket" would drop onto the felling wedge when it separated. I hit both sides of the bracket simultaneously with a 6lbs sledge and a splitting wedge. Bracket dropped right off after a couple of easy hits, maybe 1+ on a 10-scale of effort. Simple and far easier than most of what I've seen/read online. I should've taken a pic but with luck this explanation makes sense. Near zero rust or corrosion though I would imagine even with significant rust, this method would work with a little more effort.
I marked the alignment tabs, unscrewed everything, removed the entire lower control arm with bracket attached. I put the LCA on the ground with the ball joint resting vertically on a plastic [tree] felling wedge (any relatively hard flat object would work) so the "bracket" would drop onto the felling wedge when it separated. I hit both sides of the bracket simultaneously with a 6lbs sledge and a splitting wedge. Bracket dropped right off after a couple of easy hits, maybe 1+ on a 10-scale of effort. Simple and far easier than most of what I've seen/read online. I should've taken a pic but with luck this explanation makes sense. Near zero rust or corrosion though I would imagine even with significant rust, this method would work with a little more effort.
