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Yesterday in The Shop, I bolted in a new-to-me spare tire hoist, so I could finally pull my spare out of the bed. It was pretty tough packing for camping last weekend around the spare. Hoping this hoist lasts longer than the original, it was a real pain in the face cutting the old one out, and hurt the hands getting the new one in. Removing or even just lifting the bed a couple inches would have made a world of difference.
The shop has been busy, but not in a good way haha.
James’s FJ puked it’s AC compressor. He thought it was just the serpentine belt or idlers, but after swapping the horrendous grinding remained. It’s on the back burner now, James has been pretty busy lately, haven’t seen him in a couple weeks now.
Matt’s 4Runner has puked its power steering rack. The hard lines rotted out, and unfortunately the lines themselves are not replaceable. Matts truck is queued up for James to work on. He got a free used rack in lieu of a $1,000 replacement, then stumbled across a $200 manufacturer closeout deal that was too good to pass up.
Sams Caravan has puked so many parts I’m tired of working on it. I put a set of spark plugs in when a persistent misfire in cylinder 2 showed up. The electrode was mostly gone, so that made sense. Less than a month later the misfire returned, so in went a set of ignition coils and plugs. A day or two later, the e-brake cable snapped. So I put the 5th set of rear brakes into that damn Caravan, and a second replacement e-brake cable. This thing needs a full rear brake do-over every 25-40,000kms. Sitting at 170,000 now, maybe perhaps this set of rear will last to 2026? Oh, I also had to peel off the chrome caps from the lug nuts that were too swollen to fit the 19mm socket. That was a real pain.
Now onto the Tacoma.
I had big ambitious plans to road trip across Canada and pick up a new project out west, but first I needed to replace the entire front end which wobbled, groaned, creaked and vibrated. Not bad for 235,000kms essentially from the factory.Over the course of 2 weeks I stripped the front end, and replaced: UCA, LCA, lca hardware, struts, hubs, seals, cv shaft seal, inner and outer tie rods, sway bar end links, calipers, pads and rotors! Also, new rear shocks.
Holy crap, was quite the parts bill. Add a new set of duratracs too. All was supposed to be well, but alignment time failed. The passenger side, rear alignment tab on the frame folded like tin foil. Using most my strength and some ratchet straps, the alignment guy and I were able to correct camber from -2.0, to -0.1. Spec is +0.5 to +2.0, so Camber is still out, and my truck drives like shit despite $3,000 in new parts. Steering is heavy, pulls to bad side, wanders badly between 90-105 km/h, and fails to “return to Centre”. All very terrible. But seeing camber into spec should fix all of that.
On Monday coming up, truckee goes back into the alignment shop, will have that tab repaired, and alignment sent into spec.
Now that the front is mostly repaired, the rear has spoken up that it is unhappy. Bad bad vibration, I hope is just rear wheel bearings. I’m not setup to replace them, so I’ll have to outsource that job. Haven’t made any calls yet, but will call my buddy Brian first.
Before I bring truckee to Brian, I have to replace the rear hard lines on the axle. The portion just inboard of the backing plates is wayyy too crunchy to be separated and reconnected to do the wheel bearings. Will run two lengths of copper nickel line up to the flex hoses. Annnnd, I need drums and shoes. Drums were turned one already, but really the problem is they are disintegrating from rust on the outside, prolly down to half weight.
Lots going on, just nothing exciting really. Did i mention I’m glad 2024 has left us?
I feel your pain Tom, lol Just a quick question though, which Lower control arms did you use and what hardware?
Hey Kevin, here screen shot off the lower Control arms and hardware.
The lower control arms are greasable, but the nipple they provide is not greasable once the lower ball joints is installed. So got to grease it up first. A 90* nipple did not help.
The lca hardware was OK, not as stout as the oem hardware, but also greasable.The LCA hardware has failed somehow. I’m getting the truck realigned currently, Shop just called me and said the Camber plate is per bay chewed up, needs to be replaced. Add in the fact the nuts were not flanged like the OEM units, safe to say these are inferior.
Will try to get a picture of the failed part today.
Judge for yourself, but the plate is fairly beat up for being aligned once and having 3,000kms on it.
The shop is replacing my LCA hardware, I’m tired of running around. Tomorrow i will pick up my truck and pay them.
Then off to Lakeside for rear wheel bearings (fingers crossed I hope that’s my problem).
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Thanks for the info Tom. It seems ‘most’ are biting the bullet and just going with OEM lowers and bolts. That’s about $1300.00 for both sides, wow! I’m just gonna continue searching for a bit and see what’s out there and decide in a couple of weeks.
$1300 for oem LCA is too much for me. Dealers pricing is whack.
Today I got the Taco re-aligned again to have Caster added and the steering wheel Centred. Only driven 20kms since, but it is way better now. Pretty happy.
Still gotta call my buddy for rear wheel bearings, by far the worst part of my truck right now.
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