A-R-Beef, it's what's for dinner! (UCA stuff)

Parts are starting to show up for my lift, and I am pleasantly surprised how beefy these UCA's actually are. Very impressed with the build quality overall and stoked to get these installed as soon as shocks and rear leaf packs show up!

I waffled back and forth forever between these and the JBA's. I'm just not a huge fan of the JBA bolt in ball joint design. I know people love them overall, and I'm sure they are solid, but it just seems like an added point of possible failure, and another torque spec to check during service. The one thing the OME doesn't have is the grease zerks on the chassis bushings, which honestly I'm not the least bit concerned about.

One question I have; should I just buy new chassis bolts and sawzaw the old ones out, or is it relatively easy the bend the inner fenders on the 2nd gen?

I didn't see any suggested alignment info in the box, so looking for that as well if anyone has installed these.

Any other info or advise on these or just UCA install in general is much appreciated.
The Beef as promised.

 

Use vicegrips with a shop towel in the jaws to gently bend the fender. I even used a prybar on mine. It's not that bad, release the plastic harness clips and move the wiring out of the way, there's a a/c line that can be moved easily too.

Put the long bolt back in the same way it came out, top down.. if the nut comes off you won't lose the whole upper arm

Torque everything with the vehicle weight on the ground

 

@b_r_o
Thanks my man! The shop towel/vice grip idea is definitely a pro tip.

will absolutely reinstall the chassis bolt the same way it came out. I have read a lot of threads where people just cut it off and reinstall the new bolt in reverse, but that seems like a good way to lose the bolt if for some reason the nut ever came loose.

 

What's your planned lift? I like the design of the OME ucas because it keeps stockish rubber inner bushings and ball joints, something most arms don't do. My concern is that they advertise as good for up to 2" lift. My future plans are for 2-2.5" lift, so I'm unsure of OME would work well.

 

@agent4573

Unless I miss understood the tech specs, these are designed for 2+ inch lifts. They just use 2" as the standard for their alignment measurements. Lots of folks running them with the OME 3 " inch kit, as well as the BP51's at 3".

I would agree that the wording in the product description is misleading though, requiring a little more research to verify.

 

Good to hear. Thanks.

 

SOOOOO FRIGGIN PRETTY! I really though I was gonna stop at 1 1/2" and 1".....damn you guys

 

way easier just to sawzall and install a new bolt, check torque, recheck it

 

Looks like they designed the ball joint to sit at a bit of an angle rather than perfectly flat and inline with the arm itself. Seems like a good design to help increase down travel on lifted trucks without actually needing a ball joint with more articulation.

 

Takes about 20 secs a side with a pair of channel locks to move the sheet metal out of the way so you can easily slide the bolt out and reinstall IN THE PROPER orientation (nut on bottom back side).

 

@nd4spdbh Thanks for the input man! If there is any advice on this board that I take to the garage with me, it's usually from one of your post.

 

Finally got these installed over the weekend, along with 5160's with 600lb coils and wheeler bumps. The alignment was no problem at all, as I didn't need to loosen the LCA's so really the only changes they had to make were to toe which was way out. Seems to drive/track very well and I'm overall Pretty stoked with the results!

Compared to stock these are 3x the weight and beef