New bushes ready to go.
Just after buying the 4runner I had to replace the two front tyres, they were bald on the outside. Now if you have just bought a car and it has prematurely worn the front tyres don't just replace them, find out what caused it and fix the problem so it doesn't happen again!
I jacked the front up and started grabbing and wobbling all the ball joints. The only one that moved was the chassis-end of the steering idler arm. It wobbled a lot.
My local Repco auto shop couldn't do me a new one, but they did a "bush kit". Nah I thought with 3-5mm of wobble no bush is going to sort that out.
After a quick call to Toyota and pricing a complete replacement at AUD$180 I decided I'd take a punt with the $10 bush kit from Repco. I could roughly see where the bushes went and once I'd worked out that the tin hat on the top of the mount (removed in the photo) popped off revealing a nut it was all over. Undo the three bolts holding the arm onto the chassis, undo the nut on top and the whole assembly comes apart.
Replacement unit - 7 years on.
Sadly the shaft through the guts of the arm was badly pitted - obviously water gets trapped in and does it's damage. I took to the shaft with emery cloth and smoothed it up, but it is pretty far gone. None the less I put the new bushes in and bunged it back together and it didn't wobble anymore - we'll see how we go.
+2 years: The bush is still nice and tight. A recommended job.
+7 years: The bush end is a little bit wobbly, but the ball joint end is stuffed. That end cannot be fixed with a bush, so I had to get a replacement unit. Fortunately you can get aftermarket ones, this one set me back about $AUD100.
