How much rust on the rear control arm is acceptable?

Hi all,

I found a potential 1994 LWB Hiace with a 1KZ-TE engine and about 100k miles (if you recall I was originally potentially looking at the 2L engine on a camper).  I was able to take it out for a drive and an inspection.  I had a blast!   There are some elements that have it already converted to a very basic camper (seems to have a non-functional old webasco heater under the mid seat (shown in one photo).   The dealer said they replaced the water pump and performed a radiator flush, replaced a head and timing belt.    As far as my inspection goes, it seems to look and drive pretty well.   My question, there's not much more than surface rust under the front end, but the rear control arms have a definite area of the area where I could pick off flakes of metal.    I tried to take some pictures and I took a picture of the inside of the control arm, which did not show full thickness metal rust.  

Photos and video of van LINK

My question, how concerned should I be with this much rust?  I'm in the pacific northwest, so no salt, but I do plan to drive it into the mountain and in the snow.   If I can get several years without bad failure or something like an expensive repair that would make me a lot happier, but I just don't have a great idea when I look at it.   Also, there's seems to be quite a bit of rust on the exhaust system, but I gather that repair would be less involved and less catastrophic.  

I'm getting the van this Wednesday for an independent inspection where I hope to ask a few intelligent questions.  Any of those questions I should ask would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Hi - I would make sure to get those rear trailing arms checked. I imported one that was 'rust free' and it was - except they missed some rust on the inside of the trailing arm mounting points - were the bolt goes through - about the size of a UK pound coin on each. Apparently it would have failed the UK roadworthyness test - so I got it welded for about £100 each arm. if that's the case with mine - your's would need welding and possibly replacing.

Do you mind me asking how much it's on sale for?

Hello.

Useful to see those pictures. They are good quality and quite hi-res, so thanks for sharing these.

The van looks generally good but I’d be worried by those rear trailing arm brackets. To me, the one showing the obvious hole looks to have collapsed a little, but I might be wrong. I don’t know their exact shape and whether it’s just bubbling and the plate on the inner side (with the nut) is meant to bow a bit. My guess is once someone starts to poke about quite a bit of rust will rain down and this ought to be steel.

I don’t have these as I’ve got leaf springs but I see two options.
1 – Remove the trailing arm and plate up the sides. The amount necessary will depend on where the good steel is and how much is missing. If the outer side is fine, then this would be my approach, but it’s a reasonably job and best done, I think, with the arm / axle well away.
2 – Replace the bracket completely. If both sides of it are poor then this would be an option. I think this is the part: https://www.amayama.com/en/part/toyota/5105895j02. If the bracket needs a lot of remedial work then this might be easier but you might need to remove quite a bit inside the van to get the bracket off or otherwise understand how it is attached to the cross piece.

I might be overly apocalyptic on this but I’d want some demonstrable assurance that it’s really all fine, or will be fixed to acceptable roadworthy standards or the price reduced to reflect the work involved.

Hope this helps!

As an example, here's one of my training arms - though these are from the outer side and before it was under-sealed

Damn, g00se that control arm (trailing arm?) looks MUCH better than the one I saw. More confusingly, I'm not sure why the one I'm looking at has another quarter sized hole ABOVE where the bolt goes through. I'll make sure to discuss with the mechanic on Wednesday and maybe take a better picture/video of the arm that seems more rusted. It's being listed for 15.9k US dollars (half the cost of the Tom Boy I was looking at previously so that's a potential win).

LH119V: You know it's funny when I look at my pictures it does look like something is off or bent. In my mind I didn't clearly see anything that wasn't straight when I was under it so it might be a picture perspective.

Regarding your "fix" solutions, sorry I'm not sure I fully understand solution (1). Are you suggesting welding to the metal that's already there to reinforce it? Does a standard mechanic have that capability or would I need to take it to a specialty welder?

Re the second hole, it may just be that my photo is the outside of the mounting and your's is from the inside. I'll see if I can check.

Also the $16k, I'm not sure what the going rate is for Super Customs in the US, but for that price - if you were OK with waiting - you could possibly get one imported in very good condition. The issue may be finding one in a camper or part converted spec.

Here are the other photos - you can see the recent undersealing and a bit of mud splash - but also the weld repair on the inside edge.

Mine also has some kind of front shield that covers the brake lines - I don't know if that means your is missing or it's a more recent design change for this later model.

I gotcha, pictures of the weld do seem like within the realm of possibility, especially on the inner side of the bracket like you have pictured. I don't recall seeing the brake lines along that part of the vehicle, so I think this must be some variation. It would explain the hole pattern though if they used the same part for multiple versions of the vehicle.

Regarding cost: I've been hunting now for probably 3ish months and this spec checks a LOT of boxes and honestly the price seems fair. VanlifeNW would probably charge at least another 10k for this van from what I can see. 1KZ+manual+higher roof+camperish but still infrastructure for 3 people to sit+parking heater seems like a great start for my family. The import process kinda scares me since I don't have the resources nor the time to figure things out from scratch so I'd love for this thing to work out. Trying to still maintain the possibility of letting it go, though dependent on inspection tomorrow.

Cool. Fingers crossed for tomorrow

Acquired!   They got the parking heater working, yay, and I chipped off a little for a few fixes. The mechanic seemed not at all concerned about the rust and we screw drivered the bubbly metal.

Now that I've spent some money, time to spend some money!

Excellent! Have fun

Excellent. I'm very happy to be wrong on this.