Well I took my truck in for another alighnment after installing my bj spacers this morning. The guy at the shop really didnt want to waste my $ to do it, my pitman arm and idler arm joints are shot! I called the local Auto Zone, they have them in stock for $52 and $46 with a lifetime warranty, I am just leary of their parts! I think while I am in the front end I may go a head and change the upper and lower ball joints since they have a little slop in them also and possibly the tie rod ends since they are only $13 each! Does anyone know about these parts, are the Autozone parts OK?? I really want to get the front end done and forget about it for another 150,000 miles so perhaps I should just swap out all the joints and then have a fresh alighnment done, what do you all think. You can see that the idler and pitman joints are shot, the ball joints have a little up and down slop as do the tierod ends! Gotta love it,!!! I dont want to chew up one of my new Revos so I guess I get to put another $300 into it!!!!!!!! I wish insurace covered this type of stuff dont you

 

You can get a lot of this stuff at the toyota dealer. One dude told me that they only sell Ilder arms complete, but there is a write up on 4x4wire i believe on how to replace the bushings in them and what part # they are. Also I believe I saw one time on central4wd.com a set of bushings for toyota IFS upper and lower A arms. Good Luck

 

Here is a idler arm rebuild write-up: http://www.off-road.com/toyota/tech/idler/index.html It's not too bad, I borrowed a puller from Pepboys to do it.

I don't know about the pitman arm, I thought they were bullet proof.

I just did all the ball joints, I used OEM, $45 each from these guys http://www.toyota-parts.com/. Once again, I borrowed the pullers from Pepboys.

I also did the control arm bushings, but you need a press or at least huge vise to do them.

My tie rod ends seem ok

 

I actually just did the pitman arm bushing rebuild, its the ball joint end on that and the idler arm that are loose! My problem is when I lift the front by the frame and grab one of the wheels I can turn it back and forth a good bit and the other side doesnt move there is a lot of slop in the tie rod assembly, it almost looks like it is twisting up them pushes the other side. The tie rod ends are loose also, I can take a large pair of channel locks and compress all them a good 1/4 inch and the ball joints are a little shaky also! So I just ordered the entire front end! I say screw it I am going to replace everything that moves up there and get it alighned AGAIN and it will be good and tight for another 145,000 miles!!!!

 

I just did the ball joint spacers and decided that my ball joints and tierods needed some attention also. I replaced everything. At about 180,000 miles the original balljoints were pretty sloppy. The tierods were only about 6 years old, but 6 years of four wheeling had taken their toll on them.

If Frank really wanted to make some money, he'd start selling all of this stuff with his spacers.

 

[are the Autozone parts OK?? ]
Ask Autozone what brand the parts are. Moog for example makes better quality parts than Toyota and they are half the price. Moog has a redesigned idler arm that's better than Toyotas for half the price.

[I don't know about the pitman arm, I thought they were bullet proof.]
The ball joint on the end of it is no more bulletproof than any other joint. They wear out eventually. Pity they can't be replaced separately.

[You can get a lot of this stuff at the toyota dealer.]
You can get ALL the parts at the Toyota dealer. Why would you WANT to? Grossly overpriced...

 

Hi guys, well I dumped ANOTHER $360 into my front end last night at Auto Zone! I bought inner and outer tie rod ends, upper and lower ball joints for both sides, idler arm and a pitman arm! The parts are made by DANA, I dont know if its the same as the axle company or not, anyway they all came with a lifetime replacement warranty through auto zone, I guess you cant go wrong with that, even if they only last 40,000 miles I dont have to buy them every again! I think that the steering should feel about like new, I checked the steering box and there is really no play in it at all so I should be in gooooood shape!

 

Dana is good, and yes it is the same co. that makes the axles. I use their Wix oil filters. I used to work for Dana.

 

The best Pitman Arm I have seen is from Napa. Dana actually makes alot of thier parts including the pitman arm for our yotas.

 

MtGoat - How much of a pain was it to do the control arm bushings? It looks simple enough, but also looks like a huge pain...

 

Not that it has anything to do with it-but, If I look outside I can see Dana's World Headquaters from this window at my in-laws house. They are based here in Toledo and make tons of OEM parts for Jeep, GM and Ford. Slowlly starting to make stuff for Honda and others-Most of the Hondas are assembled here in Ohio now too.

But Yes, I too am curious of the difficulty of the control arm bushing replacement job.

 

IMHO it's not worth going back to stock. If you want to do it once and right :
http://www.chaosfab.com/toyaccess.html
Check out their pitman arm towards the bottom of the page.
Totally worth it! It has bronze bearing which is self lubricating but won't disintegrate like the palstic bushing that Toyota uses. My buddy and I made a bunch of these up a long time ago and they worked great except we didn't reinforce the arm like they did and it bent. You should have a look around on the site. They do a great IFS kit that has UNIballs instead of the ball joint.
http://www.chaosfab.com/toycaduni.html
Of course all at a price.

 

Sorry for the slow reply, I've been on vacation for a week.

The old bushings need to be pressed out or burned out. I used a huge vise with a 3 foot pipe on the handle for leverage, but a 10-15 ton press would be real nice for the job. A BFH helps too. The new bushings go in a lot easyer than the old ones come out.

The next hardest part of the job is getting the control arm back on the truck, a jack under the arm helps a lot with that.