80s Toy - Torsion troubles - jumped tooth?

RatLabGuy

RatLabGuy

You look like a monkey and smell like one too
Joined
May 18, 2005
Location
Churchville, MD
'93 Pickup, mostly stock, all original suspension parts.

Was driving around town, went around a turn at an intersection and POW truck front end wobbled a little... thought it was the usual pothole but could tell something was funky, got where I was going and low and behold the passengers' front suspension was notably lower, with the lower bump stop riding on the lower control arm. Basically zero suspension.
Thought maybe the torsion bar had broken or the adjusting bolt let go, but when I jack it up, the arms only go down a little bit - don't have normal droop.
Any ideas? Thinking maybe the torsion keys skipped a tooth? But that seems awefully extreme, and I know they are keyed with a 2x wide tooh so not sure how its even possible.

AFAIK none of these parts have ever been apart and its a real rust pile so this is gonna be fun.
 
maulcruiser said:
I'd say the adjusting bolt likely stripped if it's pretty rusty. Got any pictures?
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Nope but it is most definitely rusty. I tried loosening it but not dice. Its pretty much welded into the collar nut thing.
I think I'm about yto just put a 4' bar on it and break the head off.
...which is always fun bc I know its under a ton of tension. I have a mark on my floor from the last time ;-)
 
A little rowing-wachine exercise w a 4' cheater bar and that's not a problem anymore.
Worst part is knowing I'm gonna be raped by the dealer for that bolt and retainer
IMG_20230701_161357093.jpg
 
Well I'm a knucklehead. If I had just taken off the wheel and gave it in a good inspection first then I would have noticed this a little sooner....
IMG_20230701_174016266.jpg

I'm pretty sure that bend (and massive crack) are not normal.....

And an idea of the rust.... Somewhere in that blob is a zerk fitting lol
IMG_20230701_174023486.jpg
 
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This angle really shows the deterioration.
Yikes
IMG_20230701_182142703_HDR.jpg
 
And only 89k miles on it too.... :eek:

Got that sucker off.
Of course the bolts for the torsion mount on the arm were unmovable, so I just slipped it out if the splines, will have to replace that too.
And the retainer cotter pin for the ball joint castle nut is basically undistinguishable from the nut, so I'll have to let that stay (I mean it's oem w under 90k miles on it.... Should be fine right?)

IMG_20230702_003431703.jpg
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and just sitting in the stopper mount is a pile of rust fallen off of who knows wtf ...
IMG_20230702_003650390.jpg
 
Of course the cotter pin is completely rust-welded into the castle nut on the upper ball joint, the whole thing is indistinguishable.
IMG_20230703_093028959.jpg

Not even sure what to do about this? Can't cut it off at the ball joint and pound the stub down and out bc the shaft is tapered the wrong way.

Maybe cut all the way through the castle nut and shaft just above the pin? Then hope to break loose the stub of a nut and then press out the shaft stub?

On one hand this ball joint has worked great for 30 years and shown no sign of problems so I'm tempted to just leave it LOL. But I'm sure that future me would really hate past me for that.
 
RatLabGuy said:
Of course the cotter pin is completely rust-welded into the castle nut on the upper ball joint, the whole thing is indistinguishable.
View attachment 399943
Not even sure what to do about this? Can't cut it off at the ball joint and pound the stub down and out bc the shaft is tapered the wrong way.

Maybe cut all the way through the castle nut and shaft just above the pin? Then hope to break loose the stub of a nut and then press out the shaft stub?

On one hand this ball joint has worked great for 30 years and shown no sign of problems so I'm tempted to just leave it LOL. But I'm sure that future me would really hate past me for that.
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With enough ass (or battery voltage) that rusty cotter pin wont hold anything up, just power through it.
 
Ron said:
With enough ass (or battery voltage) that rusty cotter pin wont hold anything up, just power through it.
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yup. Id hit it with the big impact. Maybe throw a heat cycle or 2 at it, to try and break some of the rust bond before throwing all the ugga-duggas at it.

Worst part is the balljoint will likely just spin. If a pickle fork hammered in wont stop that, I would likely just cut off the stub/nut as 1 piece and knock the rest out the top.
 
Ron said:
With enough ass (or battery voltage) that rusty cotter pin wont hold anything up, just power through it.
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Valid point. Maybe time for the big boy pants and the 4' pipe.
Its a race to see which one breaks first, the pin, the ball joint shaft, or the cross pin in the 1/2" breaker bar. Or my back.

Ah fuuuu.... I already removed We'll see! the arm, so I bet a dollar that shaft starts to spin the whole unit in place instead of coming off. We'll see!
 
Once you get the nut off an air hammer and heat works wonders on getting rusty things like that out.
 
Assuming you know this - but just in case. For real rust like that.
Acetone and ATF mixed 50/50...soak over night...it actually works.

Or fire. Fire is surpisingly good at dealing with rust
 
Ron said:
With enough ass (or battery voltage) that rusty cotter pin wont hold anything up, just power through it.
Click to expand...
This. If I can get a socket over the pin, I don't bother taking them out first.
 
shawn said:
This. If I can get a socket over the pin, I don't bother taking them out first.
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Yeah.... Except Toyota went and put the brake line mount right underneath it so you can't get a deep socket (or any socket) on it w)I removing that... But it's held in with the two big ass hub mounting bolts that also connect the hub to the tie rod, and of course those are solidly frozen in place too....
 
In case any future people have to deal with this, here's what I did. Old control arm was already off and BJ arms and bolts sticking up and able to wobble around. Tilted the knouckle out to maximize accessibilty, used a sawzall to cut off the BJ stub & castle nut as flush as possible to the hub arm, then finished of the last bit of the nut w/ a cutoff wheel like a grinder so the nut was totally gone and it was only unthreaded stub.

I had forgotten about this PITA "feature" of 86-95 Toy trucks... basically you cannout use of these 2-finger type of balljoint/pitman arm seperators
www.harborfreight.com

Tie Rod and Pitman Arm Puller

Amazing deals on this Tie Rod And Pitman Arm Puller at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.
www.harborfreight.com www.harborfreight.com
because there isn't enough room to get under the ball joint to fit the tool. The hub mount that connects the tie rod ends to the back of the hub - and the brake line - are in the way.
You'll either have to use an old school pickle fork or maybe one of these guys, which I didn't have
3/4 in. Ball Joint Separator, there may be enough room to squeeze it in from teh side.

So if you're like me, BEFORE seperating the ball joint from the control arm, go ahead and first break free those two mounting bolts (that also go through the brake line mount), then unbolt the caliper and set the whole line and caliper assembly aside. If you don't do this first the knuckle will wobble around and its really hard to break those 19mm head hub mount bolts loose.

In my case I had to put the new arm in place and reconnect just enough to hold it together to get leverage.
Then w/ all that out of the way I was able to use my 2-jaw seperater and pop the remaining BJ unit out.
 
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