Well, not a full rebuild, probably just brakes and bearings - but, the thing doesn't seem to have any wobble in the front end (only did 40mph in a quick drive around the block); what are some tell tale signs? Should I see if I get wobble at higher mph? From the olden days, one used to pop the wheel off the ground and check for wobble, same same with this?
The hubs don't leak, either, and about the only thing I can feel is that the steering box is a bit worn (214,xxx miles).
The front tires look like they are wearing only on the outside edges, almost like toe wear. Is it getting that from just a worn out steering box, or play in all the the links?
Other than that, the thing feels pretty solid all the way around.
Try yotatech.com. There's probably a thread that deals with your exact problem.
Its an old truck, replace whatever is loose or damaged, grease everything thoroughly, drive it.
Steering box might be adjustable, check the FSM, loose one wont cause tire wear, just slop in the steering wheel.
Cool, I'll check yotatech. Funny things is, there's really not anything loose at all, besides worn out seat cushions and the sloppy steering. No wonder the guys on Top Gear couldn't kill one of these things.
That's because the guys on Top Gear didn't have a 3.0 V6 
Stupid question - you said it looks like toe wear. Have you checked the toe? It might be that simple.
^^This. The chassis and 4-cylinders are unbreakable, the 3.slow, not so much. When I got my 200,000-mile Tacoma 3.4, the difference from my old '91 3.0 was dramatic. That said, Toys are great trucks, I'm on my 4th one (over 35 years). Never had any front end problems of any kind.
Off to the parts store to grab the stuff; everything just feels SOLID when I yank and pull (hanging curveball, there, sluggers...), so the tire wear issue probably is alignment.
However, the brake disks I swear are about a 1/2 inch below spec. Grand Canyon from the very top outer edge of the disk to the pad surface area.
Crazy.
Idler arm bushing is a common wear area on them. Kinda subtle to detect. Creates wander and wear.
jmackk
New Reader
2/1/14 7:35 p.m.
Mine had the idler arm issue as well, under $20 and a half hour to replace the bushings in it and make it as good as new.
Any good alignment shop should shake the front end down first and let you know if anything else needs replacing before aligning it though. Being that it's an old truck, unless you have a Lifetime alignment or a dirt cheap alignment guy, if you plan on driving it a lot for a long time and the parts are still original, you might consider replacing all the wear parts, getting it lined up and being done with it for another 200k.
Yeah, idler arms go bad. If nothing is loose, align it and drive on.
I'm still on my first RN Truck. It's only been 20-somethin' years and a quarter million miles, plus the 106K on it when I bought it.
carbon
HalfDork
2/1/14 9:39 p.m.
I replaced my front end stuff (all of it) at 160k, no excessive play in anything at that point despite frequent moderate to severe off road and very hard road use. At the same time I replaced the dampers with bilsteins and bushings with energy suspension. Play with the torsion bars to fnd the ride quality sweet spot for you (I cornerweighted mine on some lonacre scales). I like mine with no sways. I tried all sorts of combos (hard front/no rear, hard front/ hard rear, factory front/hard rear) Mine has ferrera spring works custom leaves and factory torsions. Mine has a HumanRace Motorsports (my co.) ragjoint delete kit and front subframe reinforcement kit.
The 3.0 isnt the curse that it seems, it makes for an easy 3.4 swap. The 3.4 is a peach, way better power and way better reliability than the 3.0. Plus there's a trd blower available if you want more. There's even a plug and play swap harness.
