I bet you have never seen one of these..

The picture below is of the first completely rebuilt stock front lower control arms.

These are the first we know of outside of some parts manufacturers labs.

If your lower ball joint is blown or leaking grease, or if your bushings are creaking and popping, Toyota will tell you to buy new LCA's @ ~$750 each. Admittedly, I can see why. This was a labor intensive project, and took some specialized ($$$$) tools. There is not much room to press out the bushings, and you will need some MAJOR muscle to get the ball joints out. This is not what you want your paid techs wasting a day or so on.

On the other hand, if you have access to a machine shop (Thanks John!), and someone willing to set himself on fire when needed (thanks Brandon!), it is possible.

I will be swapping my dead LCA's out for these spiffy new ones this weekend, so I can give an after install report later. Mine will be rebuilt like these, talk to Brandon if you are interested in upgrading.

So what do you get with this rebuild? To start, the stock ball joint is replaced by a Moog version.

The Moog BJ has a grease fitting, so unlike the stockers it is serviceable. The stock rubber bushings are forcibly removed, and after a lot of cleaning, Energy Suspensions graphite impregnated urethane bushings are pressed in with the stock hardware.

Your LCA's take a lot of abuse when wheeling. Up until now, your choices were to buy new stock (~$1400-$1500 pair), or Total Chaos stock replacement ~$1300. I think this is an interesting development that gives us a third option, that should be an upgrade from stock at a reasonable cost.