A couple of days ago, I noticed bad inside wear on my front tires. Took my truck to Firestone yesterday morning for a alignment. Got a good deal... Lifetime alignments for $180.

My truck is a 1993 which spent most of its life in NH and PA, so there's a bit of corrosion. More accurately, it's rusted to crap. Two techs with a ratchet and a 3ft cheater bar couldn't break the adjustment hardware loose. All of the hardware is seized. I ordered the eccentrics, nuts, washers and bushings from Toyota yesterday, and plan to torch off the old ones tomorrow. Also, the adjustment sleeves are seized, so I'll be replacing them as well. Figured I'd do the tie rod ends while I'm in there just for the sake of prevention. I'm not messing with the ball joints. Putting on new shocks after I torch off the old bolts.

My question is this: since I'm not having any steering issues, should I change out the steering damper while I have everything apart? Not looking to spend a ton of money unnecessarily, just trying to avoid future duplication of effort.

Thanks!
Doc

 

Those things last forever, unless you're running larger tires or something. I'd personally just leave it alone.

 

The dampener cost around $30-40. Why not, it's cheap. I just replaced mine and my 4runner only has 97,000 miles.

 

My stock 1 was junk. I got a cheapy ProCrap for $35 & it made a massive difference. I'd say do it!

 

The shock assembly may last a long time, but those darn bushings at either end won't. I'd replace it.

 

Undo one end of it. If you can cycle it easily by hand it's shot.
I just put a new one on and I needed to put my weight on it to get it to move.