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Does anyone have experience pressing out old ball joints front the RUCA’s and pressing in new ones?
Maybe there is an OEM/OE ball joint available that would be a good replacement, does any one know?
Found this listing on ebay.
Cheers
as 400fanboy stated, the upper ball joint can only be bought with the upper assembly as one unit from the factory.
for the aftermarket solution you have here, you should be able to handle this like any standard ball joint replacement - using a press is ideal but a BFH works too (just don't forget to remove the retaining clip, ask me how i know )!
And with the upper A-arm, it's so much work to get to the thing in the first place, you may as well do it properly & replace the two bushes on the other end of the arm while you're in there. They're probably equally deteriorated if the ball joint is kaput. And in which case, you may as well just buy the entire arm and get genuine bushes & ball joints since the job is such a PITA. The rear arms are actually reasonably affordable, $165\ea on lexuspartsnow. South Atlanta has it for $173. Amayama has it for $170 shipped.
It's about, give or take, twice as much as assembling ball joints and bushes from Ebay and re-pressing them into the existing arm. But I agree with the others - Ebay mystery bushes should be the last option for acquiring suspension components for this car. There is a BIG quality difference, especially on the rubber bits. Or the thing is just solid poly for a motorsport application.
Last edited by 400fanboy; Jun 14, 2023 at 11:24 AM.
And with the upper A-arm, it's so much work to get to the thing in the first place, you may as well do it properly & replace the two bushes on the other end of the arm while you're in there. They're probably equally deteriorated if the ball joint is kaput. And in which case, you may as well just buy the entire arm and get genuine bushes & ball joints since the job is such a PITA. The rear arms are actually reasonably affordable, $165\ea on lexuspartsnow. South Atlanta has it for $173. Amayama has it for $170 shipped.
It's about, give or take, twice as much as assembling ball joints and bushes from Ebay and re-pressing them into the existing arm. But I agree with the others - Ebay mystery bushes should be the last option for acquiring suspension components for this car. There is a BIG quality difference, especially on the rubber bits. Or the thing is just solid poly for a motorsport application.
Absolutely. Not even worth the savings of $ when you will be spending the whole weekend sorting both arms out. Those are easily the most difficult part to R&R in the rear suspension.
The only exception is the 90-94 models as the arms are unobtanium from Toyota. I have poly bushings in the arms of my '94 and compared to the worn out spherical bushings I can not tell a difference in NVH for what its worth.
Very helpful responses, guys!
Timmy0Tool, great point regarding the clip, upon closer inspection I see can see the original clips.
Getting the OEM RUCAs delivered to my door in Canada hits over $300 a side. Love OEM, but I can’t justify the expense at the moment. I pulled the trigger on the eBay mystery « Yamato » ball joints from Latvia. Sounds dubious now. Delivery should be next week. I have a used set of RUCAs that I will press these new ball joints in beforehand. The job looks like a monster, especially since I suspect some of the through bolts on the bushes of the arms are seized.
Good luck. I hope the mystery ball joints work for you.
If you could do us all a solid and take pictures of the two different ball joints, Ebay VS your (broken) OEM ones? Side by side. Would be interesting to see if there are visual differences.
RUCA ball joint replacements?
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