JBA Offroad Upper Control Arms And Suspension MEGA Thread BS thread

My setup is 4" Maxtrac spindles, 285/70R17 Toyo RT's with 4.5" BS. I'll be getting 2.5" King adj. coil overs and struts with adjusters on all 4 corners next month. I plan to buy the JBA HD High Caster Upper A-arms. Any problems I may have or you may know that I need to pay attention too.

 

I am not paying for the install right now or alignment because some ass hole hit and ran my truck. Had to replace UCA so took advantage and got the JBAs for both sides. Insurance covered some of the cost so I figured why not. I will be getting coil overs in the next few months.

 

Also my Gobi rack finally came in!!!!! So as soon as I get back I will install and post some pics in the appropriate thread.

 

Damn, my 295s rub with 4.5” backspacing. I really don’t want to run spacers but I may have to

 

I was worried about that with my 295s I'm about to put on. My tundra wheels are 4.8" BS so I knew spacers were a necessity, but didn't want to go too small. Ended up getting some spidertrax bringing me down to 3.6". At least now I can run 35s on the same set up if I choose to.

 

Got JBA high caster UCAs, nitrochargers with OME 886s installed yesterday, getting alignment today. Will post numbers after

 

Way better now. Yesterday on highway steering was loose and felt pretty squirrelly, now everthing is nice and tight. Let go of steering wheel for a bit while driving and truck stayed straight and true

 

Trying to read through this thread...

Anyone with a 1" lift on their 2016+ able to get caster into factory specs? I don't know if that's too little of a drop and need to be within factory specs to be road legal here is Hawaii. Going to be installing Fox 2.5 extended.

 

Thanks @Blackout14 and @DoorDing. It gets pretty rough with making mods here. To be completely legal certain modifications like suspension require a reconstruction permit. To get that sticker you need to get a alignment and be in specs, and a bunch of other things like tread not past the fender. Its just safer for me to get the sticker (and change small things that cops won't notice if i am no longer in spec)...I live next to the main police station and drive to places with lots of cops. haha. I'll make a post in the Hawaii group.

 

You can bump out the caster to 2.5 and be okay. More caster is better for big tires. But if you are getting extended travel shocks, you might as well get after market UCAs to use that extra travel. But with that small of a lift, a good alignment shop like island brake and alignment should get you into spec just fine. They always max out the caster on lifted trucks.

 

Alright guys I need a little help. I was running An eibach coilover and Bilstein 5100 setup with SPC UCA and 285/70/17 tire with no rubbing issue. I had a malfunction with my SPC upper control arm so I decided to upgrade to a set of jba upper control arm. While doing so I decided to install a set of fox 2.0 coilovers, I crank the coilovers up about 6 turns on the driver side and 3 turns on the passenger side. Took my truck to the shop to get a front-end alignment called marlin from jba and and he advised to get my Camber to three to four. The Limon shop could only get my Camber to about 6.5 and said they could not get it any further down. now not only do my tires rub they are rubbing the frame as well. Does anybody on here have any recommendations or can help me solve this problem so I can get my camper where it's supposed to be?

 

I'm sorry I meant Caster. My caster right now is at 6.5 and Marlin said it should be closer to 3

 

Do the ball joint housings come powder coated? Mine are rusted to shit, and the coating that came from JBA has completely flaked off...

 

The high caster ones do not come powdercoated

 

Maybe I'm wrong but the good thing about the JBA high caster UCA is the caster is kinda set around 3, whats to adjust on the JBA UCA ?
its supposed to make things easy for the the alignment shop.

 

When are these gonna get released?

 

So I did the install of the UCA. I'm pretty sure I did it right, this is the passenger side. I installed them the same way as the SPC UCA I took off.

 

So for reference my JBAs when aligned for proper toe and camber on a truck with about 2" of lift had a *minimum* caster of about 4.5*. The alignment guy couldn't dial the caster any lower. This guy honestly did know what he was doing, probably the best alignment shop in Vegas and he had done a lot of Tacomas. This in comparison to Firestone that did my original alignment on the JBAs and completely screwed the pooch leaving a full inch of toe while claiming they had gotten to 3* of caster.

Write up in by build thread of the corrected alignment showing the drastically different cam positions compared to the Firestone bad alignment.

The takeaway I think is that indeed you can get into a position where caster will be higher than you specify. In general not a big deal - unless that additional caster is causing rubbing which seems to be the problem you are having. The other takeaway is all the fancy alignment machines are only as good as the person running them - as Firestone demonstrated for me.

There is of course variation in all trucks - that's why there are alignment cams to begin with - so maybe you are an edge case. Or maybe your spindles are slightly bent (common problem with these trucks when used heavily off road). Or maybe the cam tabs are slightly flattened (another common problem). Or maybe there is some corrosion on the cam sleeves restricting the adjustment range (yet another common problem). Or maybe there is in fact some variation/error in the UCAs. Or perhaps most likely it as little bit of all of those and in your particular case they all stacked up in the same direction!

 

So after the alignment shop attempted to do my alignment they found out my bushings were seized up. So long story short I bought new Dorman LCA and SPC alignment Eccentrics. Does anyone think that may have caused any of this?

 

No I'm saying when they tried to align it the first time they showed me they were seized... So I ordered the Dorman LCA and SPC eccentrics. After they installed the new stuff they were unable to get the Caster right.