Front End - IFS Ball Joints

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 18:41:03 -0700
From: "Bob Williams" 
Subject: Re: Ball joints

>How is the easiest way to tell if the upper/lower ball joints are worn
>out? How many BANANA s is the job of replacing both joints? Thanks for
>any info
>Mike Scarff



To tell if the ball joints are worn, lift the truck and with a long pry bar
of some sort, see how much movement there is between the A-arms and the
joints.  Forty-thousandths of and inch play is a lot.  If replacement is
needed, upper and lower joints are different, but easy to see how they fit.

To replace, raise the truck and back off the torsion bar adjustment (after
counting the threads on each side so you can easily put the adjustment back
where it goes).

Remove the tires.  I loosened the four bolts holding the ball joints in
place, but before removing I used a pickle fork to separate the joints from
their fittings (or you can pound them out).

While the top joints came out and were replaced easily, the bottom joints
required a trip to the rental shop for a threaded puller which I tightened
on the ball joint, and then still had to beat on the pickle fork with a
sledge hammer to get them loose.

Put some locktite on the bolts, tighten the joints up, readjust the torsion
bars, and you're ready to go.

Bob Williams, Las Vegas, Nevada -  94 4Runner, SR5, 22RE, 5Spd,
4" Procomp lift, Marlin Crawler, Dual T-case, BFG 33 MT’s, 4.88’s,
lockrite locker front, Detroit Softlocker rear. Dents and scratches
continually increasing in size and number!

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 01 Jun 1998 21:26:41 -0700
From: Chris Geiger 
Subject: Re: Ball joints

Jack up the truck, grab the wheel and push and pull the top of the
wheel while you (or someone else) looks at the joint. If you see 
and side to side movement it's bad. Also check the idler arm, this 
poorly designed part fails on every Toy sooner or later, and will 
fail more often if you use your truck off road. It's not too bad to 
remove, the hard part is pulling the ball joint out of the tapered 
hole in the knuckle. To remove mine last time I put a ball joint 
puller on and tightened it up a bit then heated up the knuckle with 
a small propane torch and then taped the knuckle with a hammer and 
it pops off. Then unbolt it from the upper control arm and your 
done. I would say it's a 2 banana job.

Chris Geiger 93 4Runner http://geiger.mcl.ucsb.edu/offroad.html

Mike Scarff wrote:

> How is the easiest way to tell if the upper/lower ball joints are worn
> out? How many BANANA s is the job of replacing both joints? Thanks for
> any info

------------------------------