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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Suspension restoration planning - ball joints and polybushes


Celicasaur

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Hi chaps, so, I do quite like my Supra and while I don't drive it often, I love the fact that it's so yummy. Therefore, as a treat and to make it even more awesome, in addition to a new set of HKS coilovers, I was thinking to replace all of the suspension components underneath. 

I've done a fair bit of searching and it seems that the last time this topic came up in 2017, the consensus was that to have fresh ball joints, one must buy new arms. Is this still the case in 2021? My ball joints are fine, but it's more a case of feeling that I'd be leaving a series of joints to be old, while replacing the others and they might fail, so my idea on polybushing the control arms might go to hell.

Which brings me onto the next point....for those of you that polybush the control arms, do you first buy fresh control arms and then have those polybushed in order to future-proof them with new ball joints, or do you wing it and hope that they never fail?

I'm planning to just use oem parts for the rest of the rubber bushings/arms where possible. I don't want to polybush the entire car and totally lose it's road manners, but I've always found that poly control arms in any car always make for a more direct and more planted feel.

Any other useful comments welcome. I'd like to keep it within a £2k budget if at all possible (excluding coilovers of course). My local Toyota guy is happy to offer 10% off a bulk order...not sure if there are many alternatives or better than this available?

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@Celicasaur I Do ball joint replacements for the upper front, upper rear, and lower front. I offer a range of levels of finish from just balljoint fitting to fully powdercoated with new bushes fitted. Ive attached a photo of a set. Its considerably cheaper than OEM and the bushes come with a lifetime warrenty.

 

If you are interested, drop me a message.

20211006_125944.jpg

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10 hours ago, Celicasaur said:

Hi chaps, so, I do quite like my Supra and while I don't drive it often, I love the fact that it's so yummy. Therefore, as a treat and to make it even more awesome, in addition to a new set of HKS coilovers, I was thinking to replace all of the suspension components underneath. 

I've done a fair bit of searching and it seems that the last time this topic came up in 2017, the consensus was that to have fresh ball joints, one must buy new arms. Is this still the case in 2021? My ball joints are fine, but it's more a case of feeling that I'd be leaving a series of joints to be old, while replacing the others and they might fail, so my idea on polybushing the control arms might go to hell.

Which brings me onto the next point....for those of you that polybush the control arms, do you first buy fresh control arms and then have those polybushed in order to future-proof them with new ball joints, or do you wing it and hope that they never fail?

I'm planning to just use oem parts for the rest of the rubber bushings/arms where possible. I don't want to polybush the entire car and totally lose it's road manners, but I've always found that poly control arms in any car always make for a more direct and more planted feel.

Any other useful comments welcome. I'd like to keep it within a £2k budget if at all possible (excluding coilovers of course). My local Toyota guy is happy to offer 10% off a bulk order...not sure if there are many alternatives or better than this available?

I personally prefer oem bushes opposed to poly bushes but as stated budget 4k for all new arms etc😬

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10 hours ago, blythmrk said:

I personally prefer oem bushes opposed to poly bushes but as stated budget 4k for all new arms etc😬

I agree with you, I think OEM bushes are far better than poly bushes, but it all comes down to what people can afford to do at the time.

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In 2017 I bought new OE parts for my suspension overhaul and to give you some idea on costing these were then:

Front:

New Parts - OEM

Front top control arms: £500

Front bottom control arms £540

Lower arm brackets £65

Bolts, cams, nuts & washers £132

Front strut bumpers £44

Front strut dust Insulator £66

Front anti-roll bar £276

Front bar clamps £30

Front bar bushes £18

 

New - Non OEM (Blue Print)

Tie rod ends £48

Drop links £42

 

Rear:

Bushes, arms, pipes, tank guard, tank straps and fittings

Amayama £780

Toyota Oxford £2,880

TCB £450

Other Parts

Wheel Bearings £190

Discs £100

Brake pads £120

Handbrake shoes £45

Drop links £60

Sway bar £120

All around:

Toyota Billstein struts £660

 

The thing is with the suspension if you are doing it then there is so much to do from the struts and springs to wheel bearings, roll bars and their bushes, drop links and maybe even having some professionals do a chassis tune to make sure the car is all planted correctly and evenly. You can take it as far as you want, I wanted a car that handled like new so I took it all the way with a £15k spend on the underside. With £2k you might find better ways to improve the suspension feel over treating the arms to a new bushing set. As an example, I found a new set of wheel bearings transformational (replacing the original 100k mile+ ones) in road noise and feel of the car. 

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 10/11/2021 at 1:25 PM, Andy Ven said:

@Celicasaur I Do ball joint replacements for the upper front, upper rear, and lower front. I offer a range of levels of finish from just balljoint fitting to fully powdercoated with new bushes fitted. Ive attached a photo of a set. Its considerably cheaper than OEM and the bushes come with a lifetime warrenty.

 

If you are interested, drop me a message.

20211006_125944.jpg

Wow that's a new one on me. Returbed all my suspension 9 years ago with R2R bushes but the ball joints do sit in the back of my mind. PM probably inbound in the near future 👍👍👍👍

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  • 3 weeks later...

Right chaps, so my shiney Hipermax 4 GT coilovers have arrived and i've decided that I want to go down the polybush route for that superglue feeling on the road.

Do we have many here with first-hand experiences of the stiffer yellow polybushes vs the semi-stiff red ones? Worth noting that i find the Supra a very capable car with fully stock suspension and super old HKS Hiper D coilovers.

Things I like are sharp response, grip, predictability, taughtness and strangely comfort. I understand the 4 GT coilover is quite a compliant one for the road. Seems the smart move would be to get the red polybushes, but if anybody can advise me otherwise to just say #becauseracecar and go for yellow, then please let me know. 

FYI car will likely never see a race track, except Guildford at 2am, which kind of is like a race track 

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On 10/11/2021 at 1:25 PM, Andy Ven said:

@Celicasaur I Do ball joint replacements for the upper front, upper rear, and lower front. I offer a range of levels of finish from just balljoint fitting to fully powdercoated with new bushes fitted. Ive attached a photo of a set. Its considerably cheaper than OEM and the bushes come with a lifetime warrenty.

 

If you are interested, drop me a message.

20211006_125944.jpg

Finally someone on the forums doing this. Need this guy as a hobbyist/ trader

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12 hours ago, Andy Ven said:

I am currently on with trying to do the rear lower arm which the arb and suspension strut attaches too. The others are not worth the time invested or machining as they are fairly cheap to buy new.

That would be awesome to see the rear ones done

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