Steering knuckles, camber bearings vs trunnions

[CRUISER MONKEY]

Hello to all, thank you for reading. Looking for some info on various questions,,, I have a 96 FZJ80, getting ready to do a birf service on my rig, along with some brake upgrades. I spent some time searching and still need some understanding the use of the option of installing camber bearings some offer 1 degree and others offer up to 3 degrees ,,, versus the Toyota oem stock trunnions. I currently have the old man emu medium springs in the rear, and j springs with a spacer in the front, all riding on 35 inch tires. No pending issues with any alignment, etc. which is making me wonder should I just stick with Toyota trunnions on the steering knuckles, basically do a tear down and rebuild with stock parts or go with the special camber bearings? Does it help with the stress on the steering pump due to lift and bigger tires?


Any insight on this would be helpful.




CRUISER MONKEY

 

[Candy Man]

I have the same Cruiser year and tire size and lift. just rebuilt the front steering knuckle passenger side. used all factory trunnion bearings. every thing works fine. Watch your knuckle arm bolts pass side, mine came loose,one dropped out and smoked both inner and outer wheel bearings. I re installed with red lock tight, not having that happen again! long job but well worth the time to replace all seals races and bearings while there!

Good luck!

 

[DylanICON]

When I did my front end I installed 2* king pin bearings. The additional castor is nice and helps the drivability. I also have castor bushings in the radius arms so at ~2.5" of lift I have a lot compared to many cruisers out there. I suspect some cruisers out there are even backwards castor and most are very low with bad handling. Slee has done a good job trying to educate people about this

here are some of the things to watch for if you do it:

make sure the races are matched top and bottom and always do them in pairs and take your time measuring the orientation so they are running true. I used "cast-o-line" kit and they are machined for angle as well as offset.

the stock shims for the top bearing cap and lower steering arms are usually fine when just replacing OE bearings but with the offsets I needed to re shim both sides for preload and centering the outer knuckle on the inner bell. Toyota makes different thickness upper 2 bolt shims but not lower 4 bolt ones. I thought the mini truck ones were the same-they are not. I ended up making some witch was a PITA. I'm a bit anal about these things though

both radius arm bushings and these bearings rotate the tie rod in back down closer to the radius arm. the combo of both of them puts it way to close, in fact mine has some rub marks and I need to do something about it so it doesn't bind under articulation. not sure about castor plates

overall I think they are cool and I'm glad I did it. not the easiest install for the weekend warrior however

glad

 

[CruiseOrlando]

To your comment about the tie rod binding - each rig is a little different. Some folks will get it with plates, some won't. Some folks will get it as you found - adding to much castor does that. So really, it's a gamble.

Personally, I like the OEM bushings better on the LCA's, so I'd prefer to have the 3' trunion bearings over LCA bushings. But it doesn't matter now on my rig anyways

 

[DylanICON]

I suspect the OEM bushings will last much better. Mine when removed at 190k were in good shape (the PE never off roaded though)
I used some 2.5* ones from Whiteline. They have a standard and "voided" bushing. I used the voided ones for more flex. I did a before and after forklift articulation test and picked up a couple of inches of front articulation. I suspect they wont last as long however due to the fact they are urethane not rubber and have less martial from the "voiding"

http://www.whiteline.com.au/product_detail4.php?part_number=W81730