Icon Lower Control Arm for 2nd Gens - Design Flaw?

So today’s the day after install and I got to give the LCA’s a good look this morning in the daylight. I gotta say, they look absolutely amazing on the truck. I think the design is legit, everything except this steering stop issue. We did have a hell of a fight getting the drivers side arm installed, but Mr. Ship came through with his bag o tricks and made it work. It was extremely tight, and had to be slightly modified to get it in the mounting spots. Nothing too major, but it took time. I think it may have had something to do with the Marlin Crawler LCA frame brace kit I had installed years back. The drivers side was just extremely tight. Passenger side went right in.

Really looking forward to getting out and putting these things through their paces. Additionally, if you have a S2 setup installed, you will need a longer bolt for the bottom of the shock on the LCA.

 

Glad you figured it out. Based on this I will be staying away from ICON for more suspension upgrades. Also seen issues with their leaf springs.

 

Cutting the block off of the rear, and adding it to the front was not an option for the time alloted?

 

Cutting it off is a waste of time, imo. Just grab a chunk of 1/2” bar and burn it on. 15min and $20(if you have a welder).

 

I wouldn’t recommend that. The block would contact the steering stop way too early and shorted the turning radius an undriveable amount. Everything i see tells me the arms were signed this way- for the block to contact the back of the knuckle. I measured turning radius before and after install too and noticed no change when installed as per the instructions. However, I will add that this truck had the secondary shock system installed which does require a small 1/2” extension to be welded onto the stock LCA steering stop. This prevents the tire from hitting the secondary shock and reservoir. The fabricated LCAs have taken this into account in their design so someone coming from an otherwise stock setup might notice a small amount of loss in turning radius.

 

Personally, I'm experiencing a significantly reduced steering radius compared to OEM, just pulling into a parking space has turned into a 3-point turn ordeal .The stop is gouging more than just the powder coat (image quality is not the best but you can see that it's gouging through the steel body of the LCA). This is from nearly 4 weeks of use with these LCAs.

 

I would prefer to go with another brand that's designed to work without modifications, especially for this price tag.

Guess it's a choice between Dirt King or the Total Chaos Expedition (single shock). Any one have thoughts on these two brands? I've done the research and still undecided, would love to hear from real users.

 

I love my Dirt Kings - the uniball version. Several years and some pretty hard use, zero problems. The uniballs are easy to swap in place with the Icon UCA kit. I get about 40-45k out of mine even in Salt Hell.

 

That's great. I don't see the uniball option anymore. It's either the Dirt King with the ball joint and Delrin bushing or the Total Chaos with uniball joint and poly bushings.

Dirt King:
https://dirtking.com/collections/10-tacoma/products/performance-lower-control-arms-dk-811704

Total Chaos:
https://www.chaosfab.com/product/20...Single-Shock-Lower-Control-Arms-86555-E-T-NSS


The caveat with Dirt Kings is that I'm not sure if it matches the OEM dimensions and maintains the original steering radius like the Total Chaos claims to. The ball joint makes it much more street driving friendly, however, less durable in serious off roading. That's the tradeoff.

 

The only way I would bother with stock length LCA again is if they came with uniball inner/frame pivots. The poly stuff is always getting trashed from alignment side loads and doesn’t last nearly as long as stock.

They look nice but that’s it, unless you get the BTF ones that move the wheel forward for greater caster angle.

 

I can't say with certainty that the DKs maintain exact OEM geometry, but I have no issues with turning radius nor street manners. In fact, retaining those things were key considerations for my truck from the second I started chopping it up. I went with the uniballs because I solo wheel a lot and the strength of the ball was more important to me than the tradeoffs.

It does look like they discontinued the Uniball lowers. I believe a big part of switching to BJs (when they originally started offering the BJ version) was that a lot of people got mad about buying a speciality part and then having to do specialty maintenance, i.e. having to special order uniballs, their mechanic not knowing how they work, etc.

I can't speak to that except to say I have about 80k rougher than average miles on my poly bushings without any issues, and changing them is easy when I eventually need to.

 

Update:

You will NOT be able to do a u-turn at an intersection with these Icon lower control arms. Be prepared to do 3-point turns in a busy intersection with a u-turn legal sign. Something to keep in mind if you choose to buy these LCAs.

Fifth follow-up email sent to Icon without a reply for over a month now.

Given the situation with this and how Icon has handled (or refused to respond or provide support), not to mention provide misleading and false information from the sales team, I would exercise caution in making future purchases from Icon, especially with this product in particular.

I've decided to give the Dirt Kings LCAs a try. Will update here how that goes in the future.

 

Thanks for finding out the hard way.

 

So I've got the Dirt King Lower Control arms on now and the difference is like day and night compared to the Icon junk. I have full steering radius, maybe a little too much. It handles just like stock and the steering stops engage as they were intended.

It was a choice between Dirt King and Total Chaos, I simply went with Dirt King because of their rapid response time to my questions about the product prior to my purchase, not to mention my personal preference for the Delrin bushings and the serviceable Moog ball joint.

Over a month now and Icon still has not responded to messages and has left me with a defective product and nearly 2K out of cash. Check out the reviews for Icon, I didn't realize they had fallen so low over the years. Disappointing since my entire set up was Icon-based before and it's still 90% Icon. I will be staying away from them in the future.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/icon-vehic...eative=duckduckgo&hrid=Pxds3tKiJmnZasH5xmWpPA

I'll post pics of the current set up especially with the nice Dirt King LCA's once I'm done with my suspension set up

 

Not to nitpick, but you mean Dirt King, right?

Glad you like the setup so far, they have been aces for me. I'll also tell you I had an extremely positive interaction with the company when I was in a yucky pickle. Hopefully you won't ever need it, but if you do ever need support they're extremely cool.

 

You're absolutely right. Thank you for catching that, I corrected my post. I was in the middle of an email to Desert Does It for the seat jackers and got discombobulated

 

UPDATE: Through the parent company, Icon finally reached back and accepted a full return for the LCAs. The Dirt King LCAs have been great so far.