Soft clicking noise in front of Cruiser (1 Viewer)

[hikermike]

When the CV joint went out in my '95 avalon there was an suddenly obvious clacking noise from the front when turning.
Now on my '93 Cruiser I'm having a soft intermittent clicking from the right front when I make a hard left
turn. It is occasional and not becoming more obvious.
It's been for about 3-4,000 miles. This is not the clack, clack, clack of my other car but a very quiet click.......click,click.....click......click. I.e., no pattern and only a few times a day.
No change in steering. The joint shows no leakage.. probably 300,000+ miles on it. (the odometer quit at 104,000 miles....conviently just past the 100,000
mile mark required in my state to have a working odometer). The local Toyota dealer wants almost $2,000 to put a birfield in and my local japanese repair guy
says it's real easy and will just cost between $200-300. (i.e., I don't think he's done it before) I recently changed my brakes and that did not change the sound.
(Is there an after market larger brake kit available so I don't have to change my brakes every 10,000 miles? The '94's had larger brakes,
can you put those on or does it mess up the anti lock etc.
I get 70,000 to 80,000 on my 2003 Sequoia and it makes me wish...
Give me your thoughts.....

 

[SpenserAK]

No visible grease loss, but have you actually checked the level?

 

[Malleus]

Clicking while turning is usually a sign of birfield wear. Common wisdom is you can get more life out of them if you swap them from side to side. Or you can spend the money and buy new ones.

It's not a hard job per se, it's just messy and takes time. You can see the process for your self; it's in the FSM.