New Struts and Ball Joints

Usually I try to change the ball joints the strut the wheel bearing and possibly the end link to the sway bar all at the same time so everything on that side of the car has been dealt with Moog is fine for the lower ball joint I use reasonably inexpensive wheel bearings and had no problems I have an extra set of aluminum arms already outloaded ready to bolt on just for this because I have a bunch of these cars KYB struts I've been using since the late '80s in other Toyotas and other Japanese cars with great luck I like the gas a just.. Not so much the gas rider but they are softer and give a better ride quality kind of like the Toyota originally came with The a just models are a little stiffer even on their softest setting if you have the ones with the top adjustment.

 

Believe it or not some of the cheap basic struts you can find online you don't like the Monroe that's fine they don't have weak springs I don't think that's their problem but anyway you can get you're going to want to probably be replacing the springs you know at $180,000 miles 210 whatever it is. At least I would and then the top bearings is definitely and that's probably where some of the noise is coming from if you have some All that stuff gets wonky and loose it's not made solidly to begin with it's just the nature of the design and unless you're going to swap out the coilovers and pillow ball mounts and all kinds of stuff yeah I doubt it. But that's an expensive route buying KYB inserts and I don't even know if these Prius tubes unscrew or you can get the caps off of me and I can get them off and if the insert can actually go into the tubing if it's skinny enough and I can shim it up right I can get the tops welded back on or tacked back on no problem done it many times and other vehicles and then you're buying upper strut mount separately buying reasonably good ones that's going to throw you into pretty decent costs but should net what you're looking for.

 

I would like to thank the springs on the KYB strut were OEM or they they're OEM equipment manufacturer from a lot of Japanese cars made after 1989 somewhere in there after they got their foothold I remember working early with TRD and they were using them almost exclusively this is when they were working on a very few upfits for very specific models of car generally for racing I mean real racing like in group A and b rally and all that Darren and RJ and all them over there were great guys that's when they were in Torrance and a little tiny hole in the wall.