TL;DR - Thank goodness for good friends. Zane @Speedytech7 noticed this crack in the metal frame that secures the passenger front lower control arm when we were reinforcing my alignment cam tabs. I wasn't even sure I wanted to go to the trouble of upgrading the cam tabs; sometimes, we all get more than a little lucky. Got it welded back up as good as new-ish.
I've been having a bit of trouble with my alignment, and I've mostly been trying to ignore it. I say mostly because I did purchase an All-Pro cam tab gusset kit, but of course, I just left it sitting in the "to be installed" pile of parts that any good Tacoma owner maintains.
But after my alignment went out again on the relatively tame roads we experienced on our most recent trip to Canada, I decided it was finally time to bite the bullet and get the situation taken care of.
I headed to Zane's place to tackle this one, just so I'd have a shop to work in and a bit of moral support. And, while most of the story is covered in Reinforcing the Alignment Cam Tabs, one discovery demands a bit more attention.
What we're looking at there is the tab on the frame that secures the rear leg of the passenger lower control arm (LCA). And yep, it's almost entirely cracked off. Both Zane and I had done quite a bit of work on this tab - pulling out the alignment cam and LCA, re-flattening the tab, grinding off the paint to prep for welding, and even tacking the new cam tab gusset into place - before the light just happened to get moved into a position that shined through the crack.
This resulted in a bit more paint removal, and a double-bead on each side of the crack before we got back to work installing the cam tabs.
Sometimes, you just get lucky.
Lucky that I finally stopped procrastinating the job in the first place. Lucky that Zane was nice enough to let me invade his shop. Lucky that the light got moved into the right place.
The alternative - my wheel falling off in the backcountry of Death Valley - that would have been very unlucky.
