a-premium Parts Expirnece? Front-end Rebuild.

Hello, Hello,

Curious if anyone has used the a-premium brand thats on Amazon?

I am rebuilding the front end on my '05 taco and I was looking at them for Steering Knuckles and Steering rack. I found one solid review online of their steering rack, but otherwise I can't seem to find much on them.

I certianly would like to buy a new set of knuckles that are rust free vs. taking the time to clean the current ones or spend $400 a piece on 'better' ones. My feeling is this is a chunk of metal that isnt all that complicated. I was almost considering ulta-power on rock-auto, but I figured at least with amazon I can return the things easily.

I want to live in the $2500 dollar range, at least that is my hope. More than 3K is really not attainable.

If anyone is interested this is the full build or has opinions:

- Steering Knuckles (a-premium)
- CV axcels (CVJ axels)
- Wheel bearing assembly (not picked yet)
- Tie rod ends (inner and outer) or Steering rack + inner tie rods
- Sway Bar, Links, Bushings
- Upper Control Arms (likely SPC version of Mevotech)
- Front Stocks (Bilstein 6112 + springs +2")
- Rear Shocks (Bilstein 5100 or 5160 for comfort more than need)
- Rear leafs (Dobinsons or Icon RXT)

I normally ride around with a cap, but want to be able to put weight in the rear without the cap. The goal is to have the truck level with cap + 300lbs in the back.

Updates:
-Reason for wheel bearing assembly is that I am expecting these to go eventually and the threads on my studs have streatched do to being overtighted at some point in time. I have trouble with the lug nuts loosening up (already replaced lug nuts), as with everything rust is also an issue.

- I am not taking this to moab, I live off the grid on a pretty iffy dirt road in MA, so I do want the better suspension and slight clearance bump, but Im not rock crawling. Mostly, crawling through snow and ice.

 

I see you are willing to spend the money for good suspension parts. (Shocks and springs)
Why not spend extra a get good parts for the rest. At least get a good name brand rack.
I’ve never done a steering rack job yet, that I would be ok with doing again. That isn’t the easiest of jobs.
I can see (maybe), going cheaper on the knuckle, no way on the rack.

 

Not a bad point, I had found quite a good review on their rack and it has a decent warranty (who knows that that means). I dont really want to replace the rack, but I figure while Im in there it has 100k on it. Im really tyring to keep my cost within reason. I was also looking at a cardone.

 

My rack has 160k on it. I don’t plan to touch it until I see signs of it needing replaced.
I don’t consider a rack a maintenance item. I consider it “Replace as needed”.
With the quality of parts now days, you might be taking out a better part than you’re putting in.

 

Not sure I'd call myself a cheap B@$stard but I am frugal lol.

I've restored the interior/exterior, Ive been putting this off. The LCAs are in good condition. They were replaced with a new frame, brakelines, caliper, rear leafs ~4 years ago (5k miles). Most of the issues with this truck come from sitting for a good bit of time. Below is a picture of what I am dealing with for reference. The rear leafs suck, moddest amounts of weight totally overload them.

Shocks are gone, links are gone, uca's are toast and I want to replace with modest lift. Lower ball joints I think aer fine.

From my understanding CVs and wheel bearings wear out around 100k (I am at 110). With everythign as rusted as it is, its going to be significantly easier to work with non-rusted items when putting it back together. I am tempted to leave the steering rack in place, but Idk how it looks under that boot. The rest of the truck strangly doesnt have rust, its really just these components.

For me alignments are free and id say the rack is the only thing thats annoying to replace.... after I cut off all these bolts and put new ones in.

 

I definitely wouldn't do a rack just for giggles, unless yours looks like it's about to have a rust hole in it (which is absolutely a thing). 110% agree that trying to do it as "preventative maintenance" is just as likely as not to result in you tossing a perfectly good rack, and installing a real piece of crap in its place. Also, when considering something like a rack, consider a) you probably have to pay to ship back a core (new Chinesium units are really craptastic, BTW) and b) same with a "warranty"... balance out cheap & warranty with the cost & hassle to ship it back, potential downtime, and the fun of doing the job again (and not when you want to, it never fails when you have free time & the weather is nice...)

Same kinda thing with spindles, my $0.02 there would be if your frame hasn't been replaced... if your spindles are so rusty you don't want to work on them, you should probably do some deep digging on how much you should pour into the truck, cuz I probably shudder to know what the frame looks like. They also seem like they'd be simple & there's nothing to screw up... but I'm sure with casting porosity, or using crappy metal, or piss-poor QC on the surfaces that matter, or thinning out the casting to save a few cents & making it even weaker... bottom dollar manufacturing could find a way to eff it up.

As far as moving bits (especially TREs & BJs) I wouldn't scrimp there... there's already not many great options here, and the bad ones can be REALLY bad. Moog is probably OK, although it's now a crapshoot what you get rather than 'yeah, I'm getting good US-made parts'. I personally go with Sankei/555 for tie rods. I'm giving Mevotech TTX a shot on mine, they look nice, I'm not a huge fan of Mevotech in general, but figured it was worth a try.

Especially with TREs & BJs, keep in mind that a failure could potentially /truck, if one separates in motion.

 

Wow. That’s a lot of rust. What does the frame look like?

Add to your list: all new nuts/bolts. Plan on the alignment cam’s to be froze.

 

Truck has new frame, LCAs, brakelines, caliper, rear leafs ~4 years ago (5k miles); 110k on everything else.

Rust is mostly limited to these components because of the road salt up here.

 

That looks awful to deal with. Are you in a road salt state?

 

Yes, welcome to newengland.... This is why new Knuckles are appealing. The res of the truck is great though. after some elbow grease. This was a project for sure. It was trying to die peacefully until I pulled it out of the woods.

 

Holy crap that's a lot of rust. I was probably reading or typing when you posted those pics.

Holy crap that's a lot of rust. Sorry, just needed to say that again. OK, yeah, definitely understand the new knuckles now. And I can imagine your rack may in fact be on death's door, I've seen pinholes on trucks that don't look half that bad.

I'd be cruising the parts marketplace for takeoff spindles & LCAs fo' sho'. On the bright side, you can do it all in easy pieces off the truck... get some spindles, clean & paint, bolt up some new hubs & dust shields... get some used LCAs & do bushings & LBJs at your leisure. Then when you're all ready, rip 'n tear, then bolt up the new.

 

UGH, yes. I hate rust, or more so the salt.

The LCA's seem fine to me, curious why you say that? I was planning to take them off, treat surface rust and recoat them. The casters on those look ok. I have been looking at remanufactured axels but im not sure if the current ones will be accepted for core deposits.

The issue with New England is all the take off from gen2 will look just like the above, generally. Also the alignment is not great and I need to replace this stuff to have it aligned. The shop wouldnt touch it for fear of snapping... well... anthing they touched. They suggested a new steering rack.

My tenative plan is to basically take the wheels off and then cut out pieces with an angle grinder. Picking parts right now is feeling harder (and taking longer) than doing the work.

 

Rock auto is great for parts, just don’t go too cheap or you’ll end up replacing it again! I’m also in ma it’s tough to slow the rust down, I try to hose everything down with fluid film every year. Also these are oe brand bearings ready to bolt in https://www.ebay.com/itm/161936484299

 

Any thoughts on these? I am assuming this is a toyota remanufactured? My other choice is CVJ, but shipping back and forth is a lot especially if they dont accept my cores (real worry).

https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/NCV954271?impressionRank=5

 

Those are (were) Cardone remans, which I'm about 99.999% sure were also remanning the "OE" remans you could buy from the dealer.

Near as I can tell, Cardone has exited the reman CV axle gig, probably in light of the copious availability of Chinese new axles, combined with the fact their remans were often so bad that even those new ones were 'better' (or at least didn't cause vibrations as quickly). Several people in the OE reman thread said they're OOS with no ETA from Toyota, and Napa pulled them out of stores & back to DCs maybe 6 months ago.

Edit: Good news is core $ shouldn't pose an issue. Store probably won't care regardless, and I doubt anyone else will care cuz they're probably just getting scrapped at some point in the chain now.

 

@whatstcp hahahaha yeah.... I think cam bolts are good. Im on the other size of the country but they still look shiney in that photo from last week. Unfortunately the truck has only recently come under my care, but it wasnt drive post frame replacement. It just sat and was home for many mice. Why toyota didnt replace the rest of these parts is beyond me. My guess is the LCAs broken when they were removing them. Notes show that the capipers and brake lines were replaced because they were frozen.

@fb40dash5, so on the CVs it seems like everything sucks. I cant find OEMs that are in stock other than rebuilds by CVJ. These land at $435 for a pair. Id rather have the axcel be the weak link before the front diff. w/ lifetime warranty these arent the hardest things to replace if they only last 2 years.

On the Knuckles I cant spend a grand on OEM. IDK, Im thinking just go with something and see what happens if I stick the old ones in the parts cleaner for a year. I feel like if the after market ones are snapping it would be posted somewhere around here. My guess is they would be more likely to bend if I slammed in to a rock. (Im totally happy for someone to tell me Im wrong).

Steering rack, no idea what to do there. Ive read about 200 conflicting reveiws. Again, lifetime waranty doesnt seem like the worst thing here. OEM is sold out everywhere and $$$.

 

Damn, ya just missed out... there was a member selling his rack, CVs, knuckles, and even dust shields in the marketplace, and they just sold Monday. Shipping woulda been up there, but probably worth it.

As far as aftermarket racks, I see a few AAE new units still floating around, they were pretty good AFAIK, but unless I missed a memo I think the company is gone, so I dunno about warranty. There's also Maval, which is harder to find, but IME one of the best rebuilts. Or if you're really in a bind, I have a rebuilder local to me who does great work... catch is, if yours is super crusty, you'd be eating the core $ cuz he actually cares that he can rebuild it.

 

I found some rebuilt OEM CVs from toyota dealership for a decent price point. Can I assume these are going to be farily well rebuilt and original toyota steel?

 

any way to know if these are genuine?

 

Yes