Hi
Easy question for the gurus: are lower control arms compatible only from 89-95, for my '93? Doing my brake job there last week, I noticed a bunch of crustiness and would at least like to see my pass. side one get changed out in the spring. My buddy has one, from I think an '86, so that would only mean bushings & ball joint rather than the $200+ package....
Thanks!

 

Car-part.com says 86-89 aren't interchangeable with 90-95. I trust what they say on it, it's their business to know these things. They've been 100% accurate so far with all the parts I've bought from their dealers.

 

Thanks for the link, Hippy.
Good site to bookmark.
His is a 94, I found out!

 

I wonder if the '90-'95 is referring to the 2nd gen 4Runners. I know those have a different setup for the sway bar end links than the pickups do. On the pickups, the end link is straight from the sway bar to the LCA, but the 2nd gens have a right angle/ball joint end in the end link, don't recall if that right angle end is on the LCA or at the sway bar. And on the pickups, '89-'95 should be the same generation. Might have a Toyota parts dealer look up the p/n on their system for the two year pickups and see if they are the same or not.

 

I found a bunch of different part numbers for them, which seemed to point to the change being from 89-95 instead of 90-95 for PUs and 4Runners.

But when I looked on car-part.com, they break them up into 86-89 and 90-95 for PUs and 4Runners. And 93-98 for T100s, which they state to be interchangeable with 90-95 PU/4Runner too.

I don't know how the swaybars hookup on the rest, but on my 88 they're straight from the swaybar to the LCA.

 

It is always tricky with the '89 model year, since that was the first year of the 3rd gen pickup models while '89 was the last year of the first gen 4Runner models with '90 being the first 2nd gen model.

 

O.k., I think I get the swaybar thing now atleast. All 85/08-95/01 PUs and 85/08-89/08 4Runners all use the straight type link between the swaybar and LCA. Only the 89/08-95/01 4Runners use the 90° joint on the swaybar ends of the links.

Like shown here...

And here...


The 92/08-97/03 T100s use a different straight type link. Like so...


I still don't get how any of the 86-95 PU/4Runner/93-98 T100 LCAs are different/non-interchangeable though. They should all be interchangeable...in theory. Huh...what am I missing here I wonder???