Ball Joint Failure - My Turn

[ttora4runner]

Ya, the bolt was still in it that's what I dragged down the street. The ball of the lower bj was completely exposed.

In the one photo if you look at the cv there is a wear mark in the middle of it. Steve Schaffer mentioned that that was probable do the lower bolt of the shock being installed incorrectly.

[Seanz0rz]

mind if i ask why the UCA was replaced? seems to me if that was in need of replacement, the balljoint was needed as well, especially if the recall had never been done (does that cover 2000?)

[ttora4runner]

The UCA weren't replaced. The LCA wer replaced because the bushing were shot and they were going to charge me the same price either way so they got replaced.

Another thing that has been going though my mind is when they gave me my 4runner back after inspecting the LCA while I tried to decided what I was going to do. They never put it back together right/didn't do an alignment so I had a serious toe in condition which destoryed my front tires more or less. Could this toe-in problem be behind this a bit.

[Seanz0rz]

my bad, i meant LCA. its been a long couple of weeks...

[20005spd]

if the ball joint had a ton of play in it then yes that will throw your alignment off.

[Seanz0rz]

it is very possible to destroy that balljoint when it is removed from the LCA, depending on how it is removed. pickle forks often cause alot of problems.

[troyboy162]

upper and lower ball joints 80ish
outer tierod maybe? 40ish
brake line maybe? 20ish
cv used 40-50

make sure your steering rack didnt take a beating but it looks like a slow speed and low damage. even your brake line looks ok.

what exactly was replaced? a toyota new LCA complete with LBJ as an assembly? or as sean is saying they reused your dirty old salty lower ball joint?

[YotaFun]

Ugh I don't know where my post went but let me try this again.

As per Toyota repair manual instructions, the lower ball joint does NOT get replaced.
There is a SST tool to get the ball joint out of the lower control arm.

Also the 2000 year was not included in the ball joint TSB.

Just so you know...

[troyboy162]

man if the old ball joint was reused then you gonna be out of luck trying to get them to pay for it. they have the easy out of an old part in lifted configuration and thats pretty much the truth of it. they wouldnt have had to pickle fork it. they would have just unbolted it and bolted to the new arm.

opps guess i need to go look under the truck lol

[YotaFun]

Yeah, I will be doing mine sometime this summer along with the upper uniball joints.

If you had a way to prove that they used a pickle fork to remove the joint your good but I know we use the SST on the last set we did.