Front End Suspension Clunk After LR UCA's

Last night I installed some LR UCAs and I hear a clunking noise when I go over curbs and whatnot. I currently have 5100s all around with 885s and an AAL. My sway bar is also removed.

We tried flexing it on curbs and banks on the side of the road with one person looking at the suspension. It was dark last night but we tried our best to diagnose it. We weren't able to make anything rattle by shaking it by hand and couldn't come up with anything.

This morning I tried flexing it with one of the front wheels up about a 2' incline by a loading dock. I cannot see anything that looks out of the ordinary. We used a torque wrench on everything when putting the new control arms on, so it isn't the control arm or balljoint connections being loose.

The control arm is not hitting the coilover at any point.

I'll be in the garage today working on this and another project, so i'll give any feedback a shot.

 

What did you torque them to? And is the top nut that holds the Ball Joint in it's position torqued properly as well?

 

The bolt attaching the UCA to the frame is torqued to 85ft-lb
The bolt that connects the lower part of the ball joint is torqued to 45ft-lb
The bolt that connects the upper part of the ball joint to the control arm is torqued to 150ft-lbs.

All torque specs were from a post I found on here that had a bunch of diagrams with labelled specs.
@Unchained 5150

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

@nd4spdbh thoughts? You run these.

 

I have the exact same setup,no issues. Possible blown shock? Strutmount bad?

 

A common problem with 5100/OME coils is the shock will top out when going over speed bumps, or similar things (curbs). The coil will rebound too fast and the 5100 can’t handle it, and it will fully extend, topping out. That may be it.

 

Could also be the LCA bushings popping in and out.

 

The mounts look good. The shock better not be blown, I put them on around 10k miles ago.

 

hmm.

Did you touch the LCA to frame mount bolts at all? Does it happen under compression or rebound (going up a speedbump front vs going down the backside)

 

I didn't touch the LCA bolts at all. It happens under compression and rebound.

 

hmmmm.... did you pump some grease into the zerk of the main upper ball joint. Also which version of the SPC UCA's do you have. The brand new ones with the xAxis inner joints, or the ones with the specride bushings?

 

^ This is more likely the issue.
I was getting clunks till yesterday when I replaced the LCA.
I had to replace it because I bent it and the spindle wheeling.

 

The upper ball joint is greased. I have an older model of UCA with the SpecRide bushings recently installed. Got the UCA's off of a member on here a while back and they needed new bushings and picked up the new ball joints with grease fittings.

I think this might be it, although it's not making the noise today in the cold weather

Do you have a recommendation for LCA bushings? I've heard bad things about all of Moog's stuff.

 

Stock seem to be good for a while, But mine are doing it again.. I have a set of White line ready to go in.

 

Did you figure out the what was making the clunking noise?

I just installed these SPC UCA on a 2017 and have a slight clunk noise as well. Feel/hear it slightly under 20mph when road noise isn't a factor. Torqued the same, 83ftlb, 150ftlbs and 45ftlbs. I went back yesterday and rechecked torque on both UCA bolts, ball joint and nut and all 4 LCA bolts. Didn't lossen anything else. annoying me!

 

Do you hear it when either taking off from a stop, or coming to stop at all? If you're hearing it then also, my money is on the LCA bushings, or loose cam bolts. As little as a quarter turn on a cam bolt is enough to cause that clunking as well.

 

I hear it from a start and stop. Also when I'm rolling. It's a slight clunk. Really notice it when not on the gas and the truck is moving at 10MPH. Really notice it in parking lots that are concrete and have tons of expansion joints. So that little bit of deviation between slabs, makes the clunking more frequent.

But what is odd, I did a coil spacer lift up front and had the stock UCAs for 1.5yrs. The second I install the SPC LR UCA, the light clunk starts. I only swapped the UCA by removing the main UCA bolt and ball joint then only loosened front two LCA bolts to adjust the caster. After that retorqued the UCA, ball joint nut (top and at the spindle) and LCA.

Rechecked torque settings yesterday. LCA cam bolts at 135ftlbs. Still have the noise today.

Going to unload the UCA, loosen the UCA, hand tighten and torque to 85ftlbs with it loaded as per Toyota Serv manual. See what happens.

I'll try to FoPro it if the noise continues.

 

I'm still guessing somewhere in the LCA - possibly bushings if torque is good on the bolts.

 

You think with 21k miles they're bad? How do I tell if they are bad if I cant determine them to be the source of the noise? If I remove the UCA, how do I test to see if they're worn already?