Anyone in Moab Utah that can help me? (7 Viewers)

[Notthatguy]

Took the 200 yesterday to a trail and going on a dirt road my upper ball joint from the SPC UCA decided she what to ruin the day
The ball came out the sucker clean leaving me stranded and paying $900 for a móvil mechanic to press that ball join back in. I was able to make back to the hotel waiting for tomorrow for the part to arrive. Now the truck has abs, traction control and pre collision and stability control light blinking. And one around here that can help me with a light stream scan? To erase this light before I depart to Virginia? The upper control arm is only 60 day old

 

[Boston Mangler]

I’ve never seen an SPC that used an OEM ball joint, they get so much of their adjustability from a special ball joint that can be indexed.

Granted I’ve only seen some that are a few years old.

Possible

Could of sworn an OE ball joint could be used and their adjust chinga (technical term) worked with it

Could be wrong though

 

[clrussell]

Possible

Could of sworn an OE ball joint could be used and their adjust chinga (technical term) worked with it

Could be wrong though

I think I see what you’re saying. And looking at the above it might be possible.

Interesting.

 

[Artie]

hmmm. This thread is making me think. I just blindly put on the SPC UCAs with my BP-51 kit (all purchased from Slee) in March of 2020 which is about 50K miles ago including moving the suspension over to my 2015 from my wrecked 2013. That includes a fare amount of wheeling and I don't baby her when in 4lo. I've never had any issues or noticed any noise from the SPC UCAs. All I do is hit them with grease twice a year. In hindsight, I probably don't need the adjustability as I'm only running 34s but I think my alignment guy did mess with them trying to get my slight KDSS rub to go away (it barely touches at full lock and I ignore it).

Maybe I should be carrying a spare ball joint. Or, maybe I should go Total Chaos or OME UPCs as a winter project for next season. At some point I will go Full Retard with a Filthy Motorsport Kings or something replacement of the BP-51s. Its just at this point, nothing suspension related is giving me trouble (knock on wood!!!) but y'all makin' me worry.

I’m currently going full retard, gathering parts now and have a call scheduled with Ben at Filthy in a couple days. Currently running BP51’s and SPC UCA’s and have 40k on all this and it’s starting to show its age. I believe at my use case and weight the kings are not full retardation but possibly on the spectrum. What’s likely pushing me over into “full” territory is installing the total chaos cam gussets. I want to make sure I have that area completely covered and I’m willing to go overboard to do it.

This thread isn’t completely to blame but it’s been on my mind along with my newly warrantied LCA’s.

I’ve had zero issues from my SPC’s but I also have read about several who have. Currently, I’m trying to decide on what to replace them with. Given the amount I tow I feel like I do need the adjustability to gain back some caster but it comes second to durability. Definitely something I’m going to discuss with Ben. Our use case is long days on the interstate for a couple days, then find dirt and go long into that. A failure in some of our destinations could require HAM or garmin inreach. I don’t want to worry about that type of repair or rescue. I’d rather spend the coin and go full retard to avoid a worst case scenario like that.

 

[Jetboy]

There's a lot of different ideas on UCAs. I agree that you want to not have to think about it. I was pretty happy with JBA control arms. I used 3 different aftermarket sets in 8 years on my 4Runner and those were the ones I kept. They were just simple, rubber bushings, and used an easily found high strength ball joint from a GM 2500 truck. Not the prettiest design. No forged aluminum. But they are robust, fit correctly, and gave me good alignment numbers. No squeaks, no failures, basically just install and forget them for a hundred thousand miles. Lots of others look pretty good too. The OME ones and Ironman also look good from my perspective.

Something interesting to me is that no one has made just regular OEM design UCAs that are 10mm forward in location of the ball joint and use the OME joints. Those OEM arms are strong, light, cheap to produce, and work nicely. No reason to reinvent the wheel. An OEM or aftermarket supplier should just make an adjustment to the stamping and they could have something that works great for most people at a good value.