Ball joint bind after installing Bilsteins

Well I have a regular cab 4 cylinder Tacoma. I plan on running 33x12.50 wheels so I bought a set of Bilstein 5100s and set them at 2.5. I'm out in Texas for work and really don't have the time so I let a small shop install them over the weekend. Got it back and seem to have gotten much more than 2.5 inches out of the shock, I assume because my truck is lighter than other tacos. Anyways, it's a pretty harsh ride and my UCAs seem to be at really nasty angle putting my ball joints in a bind. What I'm wondering is will a set of Light racing UCAs correct this or will I have to lower the Bilsteins?

 

Take a picture of your bilsteins so that we can see the lower coil seat.

 

As you can also see in the picture the UCA is nearly touching the coil. Maybe the ball joint angle isn't as bad as I'm thinking. I'm just worried about straining the ball joints. I had two tires fall off of my last Tacoma which had a 3 inch spacer lift so I'm trying to lift this truck the right way. I'm okay with the ride as I won't be doing much off-roading except some dirt roads I have to drive during the summer. I actually bought these shocks from Wheelers off-road. Great price and great customer service.

 

Go back to the idiots you paid for the install, and make them install the coil seat the correct way.

 

Just so you understand what he means - the black coil seat for the bottom of the coil was installed upside down so that it s giving you a whole lot more lift than intended. They will need to realign the front end again as well after they flip the coil seats and it lowers the truck back down.

 

Yeah sorry. Seems like this comes up here at least weekly.

 

No big deal, live and learn as you go.

 

Well damn. I was afraid of that.... How much lift will I lose?

 

Quite a bit to be honest amigo, it is a roughly 2:1 ratio so every inch at the coil over = 2" at the wheel. You can't lift a 4x4 more than 2.5-3" without serious CV angle issues and the upper control arm issue you noticed and a few other problems. The 2.5 setting is just that 2.5" over stock.

 

Okay. Just gonna have to do a bit more trimming than I was hoping. I won't be able to get my truck back to the shop till Thursday. I'm gonna take it easy until then. Should I be worried about my ball joints after putting them into such a bind?

 

Well got the problem fixed today. Really didn't lose that much lift. Turns out the passenger side was installed correctly and the drivers side was the one with the upside down coil seat. Was giving me a pretty weird ride.