So. One of my wheels decided to take a vacation from my truck, departed as I was going about 45 miles per hour getting onto the highway. When it did, the truck landed on the rotor and lower front suspension arm, completely grinding off the ball joint bolt and nut flush with the arm. Also took a reasonable bit of metal off of the suspension arm itself. I won't go into it much, but I believe someone at some point recently may have been attempting to steal the wheels and got scared off early.

Anyhow, back to dealing with it.

So I am thinking at the moment that I ought to replace the suspension arm as well as the ball joint. I am curious as to the thoughts in the yota community here as to other things I may want to do while I am in there. Both sides have new(ish) inner and outer tie rods.

I am not sure I will ever look at a tri-cycle the same way again.

Thoughts appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

sorry to hear that. just do a solid axle swap. the perfect excuse. haha. chec out car-parts.com they should have the parts

 

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

x2 on pics

 

X4 on pics

 

well, if metal was ground off the LCA, I would definately pull one from a junk yard truck and replace that damaged one, along with the ball joint too, along with the rotor and whatever else took a hit to the asphault

tie rods shouldn't be effected from it though, so I wouldn't worry about those if they're still in good shape

 

or whoever worked on your truck last didn't torque the wheel lugs properly.

 

Im with super.

Go get a used lower control arm. Try to get one with a good balljoint.

Replace both your rotors, I dont like replacing things un-evenly when it comes to brakes.

Once you have fixed it, get locking lugs

 

i've done that.
mine was the rear tho.

 

wow.. that sucks. pics asap!

I saw this happen at 75mphs to a riced out civic a few lanes over. Tire went bouncing faster than the car, and a Tacoma ran over the tire with his rear tire! Tacoma just kept on driving like nothing happened. I was pretty surprised to say the least.

 

I would have thought the bottom of the rotor was lower than the BJ stud (where else other than YT can you say BJ stud and not get banned??)

 

Considering spending the time to replace the control arm and such, you may as well replace the lower arm bushings on both sides.

 

Maybe you could trow in some nice adjustable struts or something. Here is a good write-up on replacing most of the things you are dealing with. Oh and I want to see pics too!
http://www.bajataco.com/tech/control_arms_01.html

 

Got everything but the new lower control arm bushings... Parts places around here are denying their existence. Anyone have a good source for them?

Working on pics, you sadistic monkeys. ;p

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/11339215...44164781247218

There ya go, enjoy the carnage, decided to put in pics of the other side for comparison.

 

google checker auto parts. enter in your vehicle info and zip code, and then search for "bushings". they have a few different options. i put polyurethane bushings from energy in my 4runner about three years ago, and haven't had any problems with them. they are only sold in sets for all eight upper and lower a-arm bushings, and all of the metal from your old bushings has to be reused. it's ALOT of work, but they're good bushings and if you're going to do any of them, you might as well do them all. the whole set would be cheaper than two of the beck-arnley replacements that come with new metal. also, when using the ones that come with new metal, unless you have acces to a press you'll have to pay a machine shop to that work for you.

 

the OP never did say the year of his truck, but 86-95's don't have struts, they have torsion bars and standard shocks


and by the way, those aren't struts either; those are coil-overs; a standard shock with a coil spring around (or over) it



just trying to be a smart @$$

 

I stand corrected...

 

95 22re
go go gadget torsion bars

Got the bushings and everything, will be doing the fix up starting tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks again guys.

 

www.car-parts.com will do a junkyard search of everywhere around you (or the country for that matter). Any sizeable junk yard will be in there.

If I had to pull lower control arms off, I'd be putting in either a straight axle, or at the least a bracket lift kit.