JBA Offroad Upper Control Arms And Suspension MEGA Thread BS thread

@pahaf I see it's cross referenced to. A GM pickup. I wonder what an OEM GM costs compared to a JBA one.

 

This.

 

I’m posting this here in hopes maybe one of you guys had this noise after installing?

https://youtu.be/v1H1Yf6Fv6M

after installing my JBAs and then getting an alignment, this is the noise I have on my driver side only. Usually only present going in reverse with the wheel cranked right.

I loosened and lubed up the UCA bolt and ball joint yesterday along with jacking the truck up and dropping it down with everything loose still. The noise seems to go away but slowly comes back.
Any ideas, I’ve posted this in other threads with no luck.

 

Anyone running 17x8.5 0 offset and no wheel spacers on 11.5 or 12.5 wides?

I have a .75" wheel spacers on 285/75/17 Cooper XLT(11.5") wide and it seems like i have well over an inch of clearance from the JBA uca at full lock.

So I think I can run no wheel spacers and still clear the UCA and maybe run 12.5" in the future.

 

Check your lower control arm bolts, sway bar bolts (unlikely but worth a check) and lower shock bolt. My guess is probably lower control arm bolts because I get a noise with them unless they are really tight. Just make sure you tighten the lowers with the truck on the ground. For the UCA's it doesn't matter but lowers do because the bushings don't move. If you tighten the lowers at droop they will keep tension on the bushing and wear it out quicker.

 

Anyone run JBA UCA on 12.5" wides and not rub the UCA with exactly 4.5" backspace wheels?

 

no

 

Anyone looking to rebuild their jba UCAs?

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/jba-offroad-uca-rebuild-kit.808333/

 

I recently purchased my 3rd set of jba’s (all on different vehicles and currently waiting on the 3rd set to be delivered) I figured I’d share my experience with the second set. I bought them for a 1st gen sequoia. Upon initial install I had an issue where when I would go over bumps at slow speed I could hear a repetitive clunk in the front. Upon inspection, when jacking the truck up it would creak and clunk the whole way while the suspension drooped. I noticed the noise was coming from the UCA. It almost sounded as coil springs popping but you could easily tell it was in the UCA. If you loosened the bolt and jacked it up the noise stopped. I contacted jba, marlin worked with me back and forth for quite a while. Ultimately he sent me a new set, had me return the old set and that did the trick. He messaged me a few weeks to a month later and said that his engineering team looked into my old control arms and found they weren’t within spec. I believe it was the bushings themselves.
I just wanted to share this for anyone who may have a similar issue and for the fact that marlin was fantastic to work with.

 

This is exactly my situation. Just under 2" up front, same on the back, and we can't get the caster I was hoping for by staying sub 2".

Anyways. I too am shopping for the most maintenance free UCA with easy to replace ball joints (OEM or otherwise). Let me know what you find out and what you decide on!

 

Jba’s offer an easy replacement by simply bolting on a new ball joint as opposed to having to press one in. The downside is you can only purchase them through JBA. Dobinsons uses a 555 ball joint which I believe is available at most auto parts stores. Dirt king may use an easy obtainable ball joint but I can’t recall for sure. Billsteins UCA is made by dirt king as well.

 

Fantastic info on ball joints. Altho I thought you could buy those JBA ones anywhere as they're technically a stock part for other rigs? What about bushings? I also don't want to be replacing or finicking with those! Not opposed to zerks on bushings, as I will lube every 5k, but I really don't wanna have to replace bushings and prefer OEM.

 

From my understanding the jba ball joints are designed after a specific gm 2500 ball joint. I do believe you can replace them with that. But they are different. The jba ball joints are manufactured in house to achieve specific performance benefits. The only way to retain that is to use jba ball joints only. Plus I imagine if you swap to anything not jba you probably void the warranty but I can’t say that for sure. Jba uses special poly type bushings. They work well but anything can wear out. I can’t recall which brand it is but someone uses OE style bushings which should last a while. I don’t see many people complaining about bushing issues with jba. Spc is having a ton of issues at the moment between bushings and ball joints.

 

I don't see why people will opt to buy a cheaper ball joint replacement to save a few dollars after spending hundreds for the UCA to begin with. Just buy an extra ball joint from JBA and keep it in the truck somewhere as a backup. Problem solved.

 

Replacement JBA balljoints and Bushings for cheap!
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/fs-jba-offroad-uca-rebuild-kit.808333/

 

Got around to installing my new JBA HD upper control arms and some new OEM tie rod ends this past weekend. I replaced my SPC upper control arms with these JBAs since the SPCs developed play in the bushings at around 20,000 miles, which is ridiculous in my opinion. Did a lot of research when deciding on these new upper control arms, including reading through this thread, so figured I'd post my experience w/ JBA here as well.

The new JBAs are awesome - I really like their design w/ the greaseable & replaceable bushings and ball joints. I'm excited to test them out.

The installation was straightforward since I had already installed control arms before, but the driver's side was a PAIN to get the inner washers between the control arm bushing and the shock tower bolt path. I think that the gap b/w the two control arm mount points was slightly off with the driver's side arm and therefore made getting those inner washers in very difficult. I had to use a pry bar to open it up and tap the washer in. Passenger side was a breeze to install. Overall really happy with my purchase thus far, but I still need to get some miles on them!

 

Nice!! I love mine. My alignment is perfect and everything just feels good. My next step is to replace the 5100s/885 coils with 6112s.

 

That's awesome man! Happy to hear you're loving their product too! How many miles you got on your JBAs? About to pick my truck up from the alignment shop this evening. Can't wait to hit some trails!

Edit: Also, that's cool you're planning to upgrade from 5100 to 6112s. To be honest, I don't know that I would spend the money to upgrade to the 6112s unless your 5100s are shot. I think having the extra diameter is "nice" but I haven't noticed any difference in performance between the 5100s and the 6112s (ran 5100s on my 2nd gen taco and am running the 6112s on my third gen). If I were you, I would consider saving up and doing some kind of mid travel setup. My next big upgrade will be the Bilstein 8100 series. Here is a helpful link about mid travel and how the Bilstein 8100s are one of the leading options. Do some Youtube searches for "Bilstein 8100 testing" and watch them. They are incredible shocks.

 

Mine have only been on for a couple weeks now, so not many miles at all. Thanks for the suggestion about the 8100s, but I really don't have a need to upgrade that much for what I do. From what I've read, the 6112s have a little bit smoother ride than the 5100s due to the better dampening effect, and that they pair well with the 5160s which is what I have in the rear. My shocks are still in good shape and could probably sell them and the coils used.

 

I’ve been thinking of doing a 3” lift.
I was hoping to use some 5100 for that and a AAL in the rear. would this gain me three inches front and rear?not sure what springs to get for the front.

From my research these JBA (non HD) seem to be the most cost effective UCA.
Would you recommend this set up?