ECGS bushing done!

My friend and I put the ECGS bushing in, and it was a breeze. Did it on his lift, that seems the best way to work on it. Before he took the axle out of the diff. he moved the axle around and said, that bearing is gone, look how much slop is here. Well upon removal of the bearing he was surprised to see all the rollers in the bearing, then a trial fit of the bushing revealed how 'tight' it was compared to the bearing, night and day difference, punched in the bushing, removed the seal, installed a new seal, reassembled, test drove and immediately noticed the vibration was gone. This process took 1 3/4 hrs., because we never put one in before, I can see someone with a install or two taking about an hour and a few minutes. Hopefully this is an end of trying to explain to service advisors the problem with the needle bearings. Bushing install..... Priceless! Actually $172.00 for the bushing, puller and installers and seal.

 

Glad it worked out! I'm sure it's a relief to not hear that noise anymore. I'll definitely be keeping this in mind.

 

not unique to 4Runner, this grinding noise, Tacoma guys are constantly buying and selling the pulling kit because guess what. They all have the same problem.

I did mine a while back. Totally worth the time and effort.

For a $40 part. Not sure why Toyota keeps draggin this on. The warranty work they have to pay out to dealers must be astronomical by now.

 

If I could hit "LIKE" 10 times I would because this is the First thing (mod?) I did on my Trd Pro 2020 4Runner, I did not think that the bearing was bad but geezzz it sure felt rather loose and now many miles latter since the ECGS bushing install I have checked on it and still is just as tight as the day we put it in.

 

Question for you guys- in addition to the needle bearing noise, did you have steering wheel shake before bushing install? Did installation of the bushing solve the steering wheel shake, too?

 

This

 

When does the shake happen? While braking or while driving highway speeds? If its highway speeds, it is probably due to an alignment issue or balancing of tires. I wouldnt say the bearing would fix a steering wheel shake issue. I know the 5th gen has a reputation of the steering shake.

 

No I would find it very hard to tie the two together because if the shake was coming from the front drive member it would be a seriously damaged drive line, and I have seen that happen with a solid axle that has many years and miles of hard use off road.
Steering wheel shake on a 2022 ? I would start with checking the balance of the wheels first then if that is all good and nothing is loose in the front suspension check the rims out for warpage since we been seeing that a lot more due to someone doing "fast" install of the lug nuts with their Nice New high torque 1/2 inch drive impact wrench set at Full on.

 

I’ve had balance and alignment investigated and addressed multiple times to no avail. I wouldn’t expect an obvious connection between the needle bearing issue and the steering wheel shake, but I thought it would be worth hearing from folks who replaced the needle bearing with the ECGS bushing, just to see if steering wheel shakes magically disappeared due to some mystical reduction in resonances across the front end. I’ve had 4 road-force balances, each time being told the runout is great the balance is great, etc. I’ve torqued every lug nut to spec each time. I live near ECGS. If the $223 for the bushing install will kill two birds with one stone, sign me up.

 

Well another way to narrow the shake down is try to find a different set of wheels to borrow with tires already mounted and take it for a spin that is how we found a "Bad" tire that was perfectly balanced but something in the tire structure was wrong that caused a bumping feeling and minor shake.

 

Will I need an alignment after have the ecgs needle bearing installed?

 

you wont need one.