When to replace steering knuckle?

I was reading another thread on some bearing pressing woes with a steering knuckle and it struck me that I've never heard of anybody replacing the actual steering knuckle itself.

I'm planning on replacing my entire front end suspension because, well, take a look at it. And I'm not sure if I should spend the $452 for a new OEM knuckle or just try to wire-wheel some of the crap off the old one, maybe hit it with a rattle can, and call it good.

Are these knuckles indestructible, so that you only really replace them if they are damaged from a collision, or if the machined faces (where the hub presses in, and where the seal makes contacts) are pitted from rust?


Passenger Side: (looking toward the rear of the truck)


Driver's side (looking toward the front of the truck):

 

2nd pic LBJ looks like it's losing grease. How old are those..? 1st one might see a bit of grease at the outer most edge too.

 

If it's not bent, wire wheel and paint it. Save the $1000 for the next big rust fix like Saf-T-Caps.

 

You're going to have to remove the knuckle from the truck to get it in the press anyway. Wire wheel + rattle can.

 

You might need to replace them if a Wheel bearing self destructs .

When you have obvious damage from ball joint failure.

 

The knuckle would be the least of my concerns. So would any of the suspension components. I would be concerned with what they are getting bolted to. Every one of the welds and seams on that frame unless that is getting replaced as well.

 

The knuckles themselves can break with a hard hit, other that that no need to replace them. I’m guessing your LCA’s will need replaced though, by the look of things. The LCA bolts, bushings and cam adjusters get seized up and creates alignment and handling issues. Seriously consider it.

 

And I think it’s worth repeating since a failure can really suck, if it were me I would be closely investigating what looks like grease loss from your lower ball joints. I’d do that before anything else.

 

Your knuckles, and control arms hardly, if ever need to be replaced unless they're obviously bent or cracked. Those aren't wear items.

Your ball joints, however, absolutely should be replaced. Those look original.

 

LCA bushings wear out and seize the through bolts making alignment impossible and for front-end shake under braking. The good news is you can pull the lower bj out with the lower control arm and throw the entire assembly in the scrap bin.

 

Semigloss black Rust-Oleum sure is spiffy

 

I was thinking for the $463 saved per side, go all in with STEEL-IT!

 

At $25 a can... Yeah I think there's some in the budget with those kinds of savings

 

or just replace the bushings with some upgraded poly ones for cheap. put whitelines in my truck. funny enough the original 1995 lca and uca bushings with 200k and 10+ years of offroad abuse and 35" tires were still perfectly usable besides the cambolts being siezed.

 

Everyone knows that flat colors are in these days.

 

Simi Flat Krylon is where it’s at. $hit is amazing. I’ve been using it for years. Rustoleum takes forever to cure, runs and looks like $hit.

 

I like the rustoleum "hammered" texture myself

 

Is that back in? I painted my first custom bumper with that stuff. Didn't age well... Second bumper with the swing out was semi gloss... I'm planing my 3rd bumper now... hardest part is going to be the paint decision. haha

 

I didn't know it wasn't in. Maybe supply suffered during the DIY boom of COVID 2020-2021. I find it at lowes. I agree it isn't the most durable paint, but it looks nice.

 

Yep, good observations, those lower ball joints are original, and have almost 300,000 miles on them, with a lot of hard wheelin'.

I got a bad feeling about the LBJs the other day and so the truck is parked. Replacement OEM LBJs arrive in a few days, and once I get them bolted on I'm going to drive down to my brother's where there's more room and take the whole thing apart to replace upper and lower control arms, do the wheel bearings and replace that ugly-ass rusted to hell dust shield while I got the knuckle apart, maybe do the Tundra brake upgrade, new shocks and springs, and wire wheel / sandblast away some of the rust and paint. Is Fleck Stone still in?