JBA Offroad Upper Control Arms And Suspension MEGA Thread BS thread

4.5

 

I gotcha. Looping in @Jibbs because he helped JBA determine some of these specs through trial and error.

 

You will need spacers to clear 255s. JBAs stick out way farther than oem arms.

 

Question:

Would the JBA's be overkill with a 1.5-2" lift? I noticed it says theyre optimized for 2-4". I'm looking at 6112's and while the lift maxes out at 1.65" for my particular truck, I get an extra inch of travel if I go with an aftermarket UCA. The JBA's are "right-priced" for my minimal demands.

 

So in a post a while back on here someone said there was a recall for rusty ball joints and such. I bought mine back in February of 2018 before the recall, just failed inspection this year for too much play in upper ball joints. Messaged JBA hopefully hear something back from them.

 

Any update?

 

any discount codes?

 

Only way to get a discount is as military. He doesn't run sales/discounts. The pieces are priced right anyway

 

Had JBAs on my Liberty and they were nice. My only complaint that I had was the powder coating kind of sucked. Had them for about 3 years and they started flaking around the BJ

 

Talked to Marlin he sent some new ones out gotta ship back the old ones. Marlin says there ball joints don’t fail. But both mine had a ton of play.

Also installed the new ones and the passenger side is a good tight fit with the boot, washer and the knuckle but the driver side has a gap between the boot and washer can’t get it to go further on either, which worries me..

 

Also for reference here’s the old and new ball joint assembly (2 years with 25k)

 

It’s more of a height issue than width. A 31.7” tire sits below the UCA. So anything bigger on a +25 rim would hit. I’ll try and get a picture so you have a visual.

 

This is 265/75/16 on stock TRD OR wheels with a little over 2” lift.

 

Ahhh. Thanks for the pic. That helps.

 

2nd Gen Tacoma with JBA UCA's and Kings.

At slow speeds, mostly with turning, I can hear a clunking/grinding noise coming from the front end. I can hear it and also feel it under my feet. Sounds like something is loose or binding.

Put it on a lift, checked everything. No play in wheel bearings, bushing on shock is good, didn't hear anything from the LCAs with movement, and didn't hear anything with UCA movement. Although it was pretty tough to get the UCA to go up. Like it was catching. But, as soon as the weight of the truck is on the front suspension, every time the UCA moves you can hear the noise. At crawl speeds, you can have someone put their hand on the UCA and as the UCA moves up and down, you can feel the noise through the UCA. Which makes me think UCAs, but not sure what it could be.

One thing to note. I have the older style UCAs, prior to the zerk fittings at the bushings.

Any thoughts, or anyone else had this issue?

 

Did you tighten the UCAs with weight on the front suspension or no? You could be binding up the bushings a bit if you made them tight while the wheels are in the air. Can try loosening them up while lifted, drop it down, bounce the front suspension a bit to help it settle, then tighten.

That's the way it was with my Jeep. Could be different in this case.

 

Initially tightened on lift. Since getting the clunk, loosened them and tightened with wheels on ground. No difference.

 

This is what I would do also.

Since I'm new to the Truck world..... Would this be the normal method for setting the suspension so that the bushings are in a "neutral" position?

 

I am in need of replacing my ball joints in my JBAs do they have to be the JBA ball joints or can I use any of these ones listed in the photo.

I have to make a trip this weekend through a snowy mountain highway and don't feel comfortable with not fixing it first but can't get the JBA ball joints in time

 

Were they well greased before install? Everything else you took apart is reinstalled correctly like sway bar end links, etc?