Gen 2 Idler arm rebuild/upgrade

[Toasty]

Today I installed my ADD chromoly king pin and bronze bushing rebuild kit in my original Mitsubishi Idler arm housing. Here is the kit out of the box.



My trashed idler assembly, pretty sure in addition to the bent shaft the bushings are shot. (break the arm nut loose before removing from assembly the truck)



First off I removed the cap from the top of the housing, only the Mitsubishi Idler has a snap ring under the cap. Some aftermarket units have caps but are still non serviceable.



Snap ring pliers would have been great here, couldn't find mine but I was able to get it out with my needle nose pliers.



I'll go clean these parts, be right back...

 

[Toasty]

Here is the old bent shaft vs the new one, I had to tap the old one out with a small hammer.


I made sure to keep track of the order and directions of parts as I cleaned them, this thing only goes back together one way. Note the tops and bottoms of each piece. It's pretty easy to figure out even if you mix up the order, this will save some time. Sometimes the springs are glued together so you won't install them wrong anyway.



With the old seal and plastic bushings removed the new bushing presses right in by hand, I used a little grease as more of a rust preventative measure. I did tap it with the plastic handle of a screwdriver to make sure the bushing was fully seated (which it was) then used the old kingpin to drive in the new seal with a small hammer.



Same basic procedure for the top side bushing, just pushed it in by hand.



Slid in the new chromoly kingpin, this part I did grease lightly even though the bronze bushings are oil impregnated. Again used my screwdriver handle to fully seat the kingpin, it doesn't take much pressure to get it in place.



Nicely sealed!



Installed the first plate, it form fits to the top of the shaft.



Bottom spring, OD down ID up if not glued to top spring



Top spring, OD up ID down.



Coverplate, you can see the snap ring groove is perfectly level with the top plate.

 

[Toasty]

Snapring installed!



A little sealant to the cap (I used blue locktite but any sealant would do the job)



Better than new!

 

[jeep-N-montero]

How much do those sell for?

 

[Toasty]

How much do those sell for?

$195 for the rebuild kit with chromoly king pin, just the normal rebuild kit is $70 (bronze bushings and seal). adventuredrivendesign.com

 

[Toasty]

Steering feel after the rebuild is super smooth, even if not upgrading the king pin the bushing kit makes a noticeable difference.

 

[jeep-N-montero]

Do they offer a lifetime warranty on the parts? And if a person intends to stay with 33x10.50 or 34x10.50 tires would they benefit much from replacing the kingpin?

 

[plh]

Excellent write-up Adam!

 

[Toasty]

No, but I had a lifetime warranty idler on the truck before and it guaranteed me a lifetime of replacing it after every good wheeling trip. Yeah, 33's or bigger you're looking at bending an idler with spirited offroad use but with crawler gears and finesse you can wheel pretty tough trails and not bend the OEM kingpin. Most could rebuild the stock assembly and never worry about it again. Montero steering parts are pretty stout compared to most others but once the idler is bent it makes it really easy to bend the other parts, there's only so many draglinks left in the junkyards ha ha ha!

 

[Toasty]

Excellent write-up Adam!

Thanks Phil!

 

[tlr]

So will these work with aftermarket units or only OEM?
Thanks

 

[Toasty]

Only OEM, The aftermarket assemblies are non serviceable of what I've found so far (i've bought a few). The aftermarket arms themselves are interchangeable and most of them are made by NOK, not that that part ever goes bad but if you already have a Moog lifetime idler like I have you can just swap out the arm for free if the joint ever goes bad. So for this write up I dug out my original bent idler, rebuilt it with the chromo kingpin and installed the newer arm on the kingpin. Worked great.

 

[Toasty]

The way the aftermarket parts companies work is they buy whatever stock from whatever supplier is cheapest, put it in their box and sell it. I've gotten different aftermarket parts from the same brand several times, I'm sure there are even some OEM idlers out there in different brands boxes.

 

[DezRacer25]

Did you put that on a Gen 1? I heard something about retofitting a Gen 2 idler and pitman arm to use the kit. Does that change the geometry of the steering and do I need to change over other Gen 2 parts to make it work?

 

[Toasty]

I have put them on Gen 1's (Gen 2 idlers that is), swapping the idler and pitman arm does change the geometry. There are some pros and cons of mixing and matching the parts, first off the full gen 2 swap is awesome and performs flawlessly. If you do just the idler and pitman arms your steering will become much more sensitive due to the increased leverage of the longer arms, the bad part is with small tires it's very darty and unsafe. The good being with big meaty tires they steer like little tires, so on road it handles wide tires better and offroad it makes steering much easier.
.
I only can recommend a complete Gen 2 swap because it is the best thing in the world for a Gen 1; smoother ride, longer travel, bigger brakes, bolt on balljoints, wider track. However you can tune your truck how ever you like for your needs, I know some guys who only run gen 2 upper control arms and love it. It does become harder to align with mismatched parts but it is possible.
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If you are just looking to upgrade your Gen 1 idler arm because you are tired of bending them I have something for you, proven up to 37" tires. Shoot me a PM.