The guy will take $100. Must have the magic touch.

 

You're right...I was wrong...man, that hurt to type!

Upon closer inspection of the parts in the boxes, it DOES say MOOG on the stickers but they are not made by Moog...not sure why they say that.

It appears they are made by a company called OE brand.

Anyone have feedback on them? They are the same company that made all the steering parts I just installed in my 2000, 2500 4X4 Dodge Ram. The installation and alignment went fine. I do understand that they are not top of the line.

 

Parts that cheap can only be made in one place. And that place is China.

In my experience, one very seldom gets something for nothing. Probably better to park the truck and hitchhike until one has saved up enough for decent quality parts.

 

anyone buy from world suspension, they sell a whole kit on ebay as well for about 90$ shipped. Don't know if these are any good

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/4-Bal...item1e5591b062

 

That's the dude I bought my Ram front steering system off of...All OE Brand...I still have the boxes if anyone needs proof as I just installed them.

 

Mac and Snap-On tools now being made in China as well. They get the benefit of getting their tools made by illiterate 13 year olds yet sell them under the guise of being made in the states at a premium, American, price....just like Crapsman, S&K, Irwin and most all of the supposed American companies. Just a counter-argument. I believe China will eventually force America out of the manufacturing game then slowly raise prices because there will be no one left to compete. But I delve into politics and that's a taboo here.

 

I don't know if you needed any more info, but I replaced my ball joints today on my '91 pickup. I don't know if you have coil springs or not, but this is what i had to do...

First I loosened the torsion bar adjustment bolt

Took out cotter pins and loosened the crown nuts on both ball joints.

Used a pickle fork to break the mechanical welds between the ball joints and the knuckle assembly

Took out the nuts and bolts of the ball joints

For Upper ball joints- if you can lift your upper control arm a little bit (which is why torsion springs were loosened up) you can just replace it with a new one. I bought a ball joint press, but ended up not needing it, it makes a good emergency back-up though.

For Lower ball joints- There is a small slot on one side of the ball joint where you can hammer a screwdriver to shim it off the knuckle where its attached to. Then jack up the rotor and if everythings loose you should be able to easily take it out.

Also, you just want to loosen the crown nuts on the ball joints so that the rotor won't crash down after taking things apart.

Not necessarily in that order, but once you figure it out the other side is a piece of cake. I just kinda figured it out as I went along.

I don't know if they exist, but I would try to get lower ball joints with zerk fittings that DON'T face the control arm cuz then you can't get to it. Which is the kind of lower ball joint I got.

I don't know what else I'm missing, but I hope this helps anybody.

 

I just got those Beck/Arnley (picture on 1st page) upper and lower ball joints from rockauto, the uppers come with stickers that say "made in japan" the lowers say "made in korea". Now my problem: the uppers came with the studs in the ball joints already?!?! The studs were obviously too short to fit with the ball joint spacers, has anyone run into this problem or have any suggestions?

 

Some studs are just pressed in and can be knowcked out. I bought the same setup from worldsuspension on Ebay and the parts do seem to be decent. They have the Zerk fittings and are solid. I might get a new idler arm, as it does not seem to be any better than OEM. It took me about 1 hour a side to do everything, pitman arm, idler arm, tie rods, ball joints and spacers. Not very hard at all, just tedious. I used a pulley puller to loosen tie rods and lower ball joints. I let the steering knuckles dangle and hit the top with the castle nut loosened to remove the upper ball joints. Worked perfectly.

 

The ebay front suspension kits are garbage, expect them to last only a year. The ebay idler from these kits have relatively soft black material bushing inside the unit, not like the factory nylon type plastic or aftermarket bronze. Go factory OEM from toyotapartsales.

 

yeah, I am rebuilding stock idler arm with brass bushings and I might put it back on. I am also thinking of the total chaos idler arm as I am running BJ spacers.

 

Im considering XRF ball joints. Not impressed with moog..

Bought one of those OE front end kits from ebay. Quality was pretty lacking, read lots of horror stories. Might run the tie rod ends, but that's a big maybe.

Found a nice idler arm on ebay. Mcquay norris. Sold by autozone apparently. It has a larger shaft diameter then stock and SDORI has brass bushings for it.

I got mine shipped to the border complete for $52 CAD.

 

Can you post up a link to the ebay idler. I was looking for a SDORI compatible idler that would ship to Canada for a while. Let us know how the bushings fit.

The factory balljoints are the best, and they are not a bad price from toyotapartssales. They come pre-greased, but without zerks since they are meant to be greased with the boot nipples that when installed face to the rear.

 

i was about to start changing both upper and lower ball joints on my 86 4x4 and my boss looked at it and told me that i would have to loosen the torsion rods. is he correct in that assumption? or is it just because he's a chevy guy?

 

No, you don't need to loosen the torsion bars.

 

Hey y'all! I'm fairly new to yotatech and I am just starting to get into motor vehicles. I'm going to replace the upper and lower ball joints on my 95 4runner. Do I need any parts besides the ball joint, or can I just get the ball joints by themselves? I'm ordering from Toyota of Dallas online. Thanks for any input.

 

Just order the ball joints unless you want to replace the bolts/nuts. You'll also need two cotter pins but they can come from local parts store i.e. Autozone etc. TOD is a good choice.

 

Awesome! Thanks RW. Helping me out again!!! I'll post about how it goes when I am finished.