This one might be best answered by folks who live in places that have salted roads. 2005 KJ CRD Limited, for reference.
I'm in the middle of getting the lift in. One thing that I noticed last week when I started bathing every fastener that might need it in PB Blaster: the steering knuckles and clevis are rusted to a somewhat surprising extent.
As far as the knuckle goes, it's not a huge deal, but that ABS sensor is never coming out of there short of some very powerful and very destructive drilling. It took a day of pressure and persuasion on both sides to get the knuckles out, but they're finally out.
With respect to the clevis: neither one looks exactly great. They're not just Swiss cheese, but, for hard parts, there's a surprising amount of material flaking off of them. Frankly, it's more than I'm really happy with (or about).
From what I recall of running the VIN on this KJ before I bought it, it spent most of its life in New Jersey and Maryland before finally ending up in Virginia (where I bought it). I lived in Virginia for a time, so am familiar with conditions in the Mid-Atlantic in Winter, but I don't think I've ever seen components like this in this condition in my life - and I've lived in some pretty wet and salty places.
What's interesting (and makes me think that this one is not a Hurricane Sandy vehicle) is that rest of it is amazingly rust-free. It's literally just the Clevis and knuckles that are as rough as they are.
Is this common on KJs? If it is, that's fine and I can go pull better-condition replacements at the junkyard - but it was really surprising to run across given that everything at the rear was in much better shape.
Oh, and current reference on where getting the lift in stands at present
