Cam tab gussets

Recently found my LCA front driver side cam tab gussets bent over. Will it be ok if i do the alignment and then bend it and weld it back ?

 

I think it’s all right to repair it like you said, as long as you are ok with the repair being as good as you are doing it. It might be easier to do with the LCA bolts out though.

It also might be better to flatten out the bent tab, cut a little tab out of a piece of strap the same thickness, and then weld a bead on the new piece of tab over the old flattened tab. Might take a little bit of eyeing up the situation to figure out the best way.

They also sell weld-on kits to reinforce/rebuild the cam tabs. This might be the easiest way. These 4runner and tacoma cam tabs are known to bend if you wheel hard.

 

Bend it back and put a weld bead behind it to reinforce. Pull the LCA away from the frame for welding to avoid cooking the bushing. Do this before the alignment.

 

If anyone in the Portland area had a welder and is willing to help me put a bead reinforcement behind the stock tabs I will pay in Beer, Cash, and/or manual labor

 

Hello akki445,

BigMike from MC checking in!! Sucks to see that tab bent. You can bend it back into the original position perpendicular off the frame, but because steel fatigues when it is bent back-and-forth, you may want to add a ~1" bead of weld behind the tab after you straighten it, then spray paint to prevent rust.

Alternatively and beyond the scope of the repair, we make a cam tab strengthening kit that does not require removing & replacing anything from the frame, rather, we slip a 1/4" thick plate of steel over all 16 cam tabs and tie them together with lower double-shear bracing. You'll never have this problem ever again!

More info: https://www.marlincrawler.com/products/armor/frame-armor

EDIT: Just posted a "How To" thread on how to do this without removing your control arms https://www.4runners.com/threads/how-to-strengthen-cam-tabs-without-removing-control-arms.44851/

 

Perfect candidate for this! Was getting ready to link your prior post but you already had it covered.

 

I just picked up a stick welder to do my BMC plates. May grab this cam tab kit from marlincrawler. I was going to simply run a bead behind each tab but this seems to be more bulletproof. I just put 34s on and want to start beefing something things up.

 

Thanks for the kinds words @johnnyg182. Cam tab replacement kits are nice, however, they take more effort to install and lack other features that our kit provides such as also strengthening the LCA frame mounts themselves. Here are a couple overview pics of what our kit achieves. It also prevents sloppy alignment shops from incorrectly rotating your eccentrics upside down

 

You can bend it back and reinforce the backside of it with some welding. Then get it aligned. In that order. But...
+1 for the Marlin Crawler kit.

I went with Total Chaos cam tab gussets but I like the reinforcement plates on the MC kit. I may go ahead and order some and modify them to work with the total chaos cam tab gussets.

If I were to do it again I'd just get the MC kit in the first place.