OME Lift UCA Touches Coil Spring

Hey guys, so I just got my Old man emu lift with 881 coils, top plate spacer to get the full 3 inch lift, and Dakar leaf spring installed. There is one problem though. At full droop the Spindle (not uca sorry i wasn't thinking) touches the coil spring, and ideas to fix it? Or is that just going to be how it is?

 

That is because of the top plate spacer. It literally pushes down the coilover and forces everything into position to where the spindle will hit the coil. One of the many reasons why spacers suck.

Either remove the top plate spacer or get yourself some limit straps to prevent the suspension from drooping that far.

Edit: and by UCA do you mean the spindle? I think it would be impossible for the UCA to touch the coil.

 

Ignore.

 

Yeah sorry it's the spindle I wasn't thinking

 

The spacer is only half an inch would that still be enough to cause it? I talked to toytec and they said to rotate the coil spring so the spindle goes in between the coils but i'm not quite sure how to get a spring compressor in there without taking everything apart.

 

You don't need to compress the spring to rotate it.

 

What do you do, just full droop and twist really hard?

 

Yes, more or less. Maybe full droop will allow you to spin it, but I doubt it with the top plate spacer...
Put her up on jack stands, remove tire, sway bar linkage to lca and outer tie end rod then crank up lca with a jack, remove 4 lower ball-joint to spindle bolts, then lower jack.

Should be lose enough to spin the coil spring.
Use red loctite when reassembling the bolts and use new pins then get an alignment.

I have 882's with 10mm tps and my inner part of the spindel (where the ubj connects) made contact on full compression on the passenger side of the upper coil mount (if that's what it's called??). And it notched a bit of metal out of it. Now it doesn't make contact anymore.

 

Pretty much.

 

I think even if you rotate the coil around, at full the droop the spindle will still probably hit something, depending on how spaced/compressed the coils are.

When I had a spacers on my truck I can remember that no matter how I oriented everything the spindle still hit the coil, but that was with stock coils. So maybe the spaces between the ome coils are larger.

 

So i removed the sway bar linkage and the 4 bolts to the lower ball joint. The spring will not turn at all even prying the lca with a bar. Ideas? Worried I might have to remove the top plate spacer but will that give me alot of rake or still let me run 285s?

 

Is this the problem you're talking about:



The ball joint doesn't have enough freedom to allow the spindle to travel parallel to the tire movement. So as the UCA swings down, it starts forcing the spindle, via the ball joint, towards the coil spring. It all has to do with the geometry of the original suspension and the fact that you are pushing it to operate closer to full droop.

If it is the problem, I solved it the expensive way (uniball ucas):

 

Yep that's the problem, except its the lower edge of the spindle that touches the coil, not the top edge/ ball joint like yours.

 

That's at full droop. It already dragged against the coil and popped to the bottom side.

If you're messing with the coil, trying to get it to line up just so, the suspension is reaching its limits. Don't know if the LR's will fix it but the Camburg's are decently priced and may fix the problem. Otherwise, I'd recommend taking the spacer out.

 

All Pro's are even cheaper than the burgs at $499. They are very well made. Although I haven't got a chance to really test them yet. I love mine so far:

 

what did the all pros cost?

 

Thanks guys I appreciate the help.

 

After finally hitting the trail with the new UCAs, very happy I got them. Had a lot more control bajaing through the arroyos and had way less traction problems when rock crawling. Highly recommended if you do a good bit of off-roading and hanging on to the truck for awhile.

Removing the top plate spacer is the cheaper solution. When I installed mine, I got roughly a 1.5 to 1 lift ratio. Not sure of the height of the one you are using but it'll drop the nose about 1.5 x the top plate spacer height.

 

Thanks man, I started a new thread about the uca's vs removing the top plate. So would you say that the uca's were a noticeable upgrade other then just not hitting your coils? I'd probably end up getting light racing uca's as I live in a cold climate and have heard that uniballs will wear out quick with the ice.