This Sunday is maintenance day for my Toyota FJ Cruiser. The projects include replacing the joints in the upper a-arms and upgrading and brake pads and rotors. First on the agenda was to tackle the a-arms
The joints in the All Pro Off Road upper a-arms are lined with Teflon and wear out after 15,000 to 20,000 miles. My Toyota FJ Cruiser has about 50,000 miles so it was time for the second set of joints to be replaced.
A-arms removed
All Pro sent me a new set of joints and I attempted this maintenance operation a few weeks ago. When I attempted to remove the bolt I found that it had been bent due to a hard impact we experienced on our last trip that bottomed out the suspension. At full compression the bolt bound up in the joint housing and the bolt bent as well as the miss alignment bushings. Unable to remove the bolts I put the front of the FJ back together and called All Pro for replacement bolts and bushings. I received new bolts and bushings from All Pro on Friday and was ready to do the repair this weekend.
A-arms with joint removed
I tried to tap the joints out with the A-Arms in the FJ but this did not work. With the A-Arms removed from the FJ I was able to use the socket to hammer the old joints out and seat the new joints.
Seating the new joint
The repair took about 1.5 hours to complete and the front of the FJ is now much tighter.
Completed a-arm Repair