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Has anyone successfully replaced a lca ball joint?

Old 10-28-11, 07:06 PM
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xspsi6
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Default Has anyone successfully replaced a lca ball joint?

I may just have a way to rebuild thes lca's here in the future but was wondering if anybody has done it ever with success?

My dad owns a machine shop and we think we may have found a way but won't know untill we dig further in to it here in a couple of weeks.
Old 10-28-11, 07:41 PM
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sc400LEXO
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let me know how this goes! keep me posted!
Old 10-28-11, 08:05 PM
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cmh
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i guess im slow because im not sur what a "lower control arm ball joint" is... do u have a picture of what ur talking about
Old 10-28-11, 08:27 PM
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xspsi6
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Originally Posted by cmh
i guess im slow because im not sur what a "lower control arm ball joint" is... do u have a picture of what ur talking about
It's the balljoint in the lca here is a pic of the lca...
Old 10-28-11, 08:27 PM
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The balljoints for our SC's are irreplaceable. (Sounds like a Beyonce song) They only made replaceable balljoints on light weight cars. (Use your imagination if the replaceable one fail on our boats)
Old 10-28-11, 08:32 PM
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Originally Posted by kingphilip
The balljoints for our SC's are irreplaceable. (Sounds like a Beyonce song) They only made replaceable balljoints on light weight cars.
Nah it can be replaced but not by lexus however the arm was not cast with the ball joint in there so it can and will come out however it will be a bit of labor to do this but for sure doable and this will save people hundreds on a lca replacement for something so stupid such as bushings or a slopy balljoint,

I did this back in the day for the 3kgt vr4 as those were the same "non serviceable" cont arms.
Old 10-28-11, 08:46 PM
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cmh
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lol man im an idiot... lol. yea but i heard all u can change is the bsuhings otherwise u need a new arm... what kingphilip said. anyhow now i get it. sorry for the stupid question.
Old 10-28-11, 09:02 PM
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Lol no worries^^
Old 10-28-11, 10:53 PM
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might want to see if the part if purchasable first
Old 10-29-11, 09:03 AM
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Originally Posted by chingpo05
might want to see if the part if purchasable first
It is the machine work that is the hard part but the ball joint is nothing special.
Old 10-29-11, 09:41 PM
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interested!
Old 10-29-11, 11:17 PM
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I'm not sure of this specific instance, but ive never met a non solid bushing that you couldnt just burn/melt out.

the smell is horrid though.
Old 10-30-11, 07:52 AM
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I have a set of used LCA's that I'm putting QA1 COM series 3/4" mono ball bearings into. You have to machine the bottom end of the arm to remove the material that encloses the OEM ball joint. Keep a vigilant eye open when doing it so you don't extend the cut into the ball joint housing or you'll end up punching right through when you go to press it out.

EDIT: If people here are interested I can take the extra time to document how I'm doing it.

Last edited by atlsupdawg; 10-30-11 at 08:00 AM.
Old 10-30-11, 09:36 PM
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if anyone can figure out how to do this successfully, it can be EPIC for the SC community! Good luck gentlemen
Old 11-02-11, 08:39 AM
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Originally Posted by atlsupdawg
I have a set of used LCA's that I'm putting QA1 COM series 3/4" mono ball bearings into. You have to machine the bottom end of the arm to remove the material that encloses the OEM ball joint. Keep a vigilant eye open when doing it so you don't extend the cut into the ball joint housing or you'll end up punching right through when you go to press it out.

EDIT: If people here are interested I can take the extra time to document how I'm doing it.
I would like to see what you have going and compare notes

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