Simple UCA debate

I’ve a number of posts on here explaining that the bushings and ball joint have some play in them by design. How did you inspect them? Did you inspect them when new?

 

Believe this is what you are talking about(page 6). The joint is under spring force that can be overcome with high force, not really "play".

https://www.spcalignment.com/partFAQ/25470_FAQ.pdf

 

Spc’s have been trash recently. They have had a huge amount of inner x-axis bushings fail and ball joint failures.

 

I didn't mess with them when new but after a few thousand miles I started to notice a slight clunking when going over small bumps when turning. It got worse after a while so that's when I started looking into it.

I jacked up the truck and noticed quite a bit of play from the ball joints when I pushed on the tire. The shop swapped the ball joints under warranty and said they were definitely loose. After the warranty install I still had the loose knocking noise. I found that I could recreate the noise by grabbing the uac and shaking it. I can also feel that it's loose when I do this.

 

This might be useful as well.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XPMCCeptPZA

 

Here is a look at my old spc’s. These had about 11k miles on them.

https://youtu.be/6pt9leN6GUY

 

That video does not make it clear that you are following the inspection procedure

It might just be an aspect of the video, but it looks like you have play in your wheel bearing. I see the top of the tire moving in and out. It’s really hard to tell though.

 

The up and down movement in BJ is probably wear spring, my money is it was fully drooped out as well when tested.

 

One key thing everyone should understand about UCAs is that they are not load bearing. The LCA is what supports the weight of the truck. The UCA simply keeps the spindle in the correct orientation.

Everyone should also understand that a balljoint is like a door hinge. It’s supposed to have “play” (in the designed degrees of freedom) to allow the suspension to cycle.

One last note… bushings are designed to be squishy in order to soak up vibration. If you want a race truck like suspension with little or no play, you should look at racing UCAs with heim joints and uniballs or some thing similar.

 

It seems like a uniball uca would be better suited for 2.5 applications than ball joint uca if you're really giving the truck a work out.

 

Depends on what your definition of a work out is. There are always going to be trade-offs btw which upper control arm style you choose.

 

the inner bushings are what Spc calls X-axis bushings. However they are sealed heims which should have no play. While it looks like the wheel bearing has play it’s all movement in the uca. Between the inner X-axis joints and the ball joints all 3 had movement. There was 1 inner bushings that had no play when I put a dial indicator on it. These were the remaining videos I had on my phone from when I warrantied mine out. In this video the lower arms were not supported but even when they were the upper ball joints had lateral play in them not just vertical play.

If you look at the cutaway of spc’s X-axis it’s just a type of sealed heim. The shop i used to work at had the correct replacement X-axis on hand but I decided to warranty the entire arms out and replace them with something else.
https://www.spcalignment.com/component/content/article?id=291#SealedFlexJoints

 

Maybe we are taking about different products. I believe my SPC UCAs have SpecRide bushings with an option to upgrade to xAxis bushings. The SpecRide are normal polymer bushings I think.

https://www.spcalignment.com/component/spc/?task=part_description&pid=25470

 

The spec ride bushings are for the older tubular arms and the newer cast arms were originally available with either a rubber bushing or x-axis but Spc discontinued the rubber bushings. The x-axis bushings on our trucks are suspended in a very thin layer or rubber. When they fail they make quite a loud clunk. If you watch the video you will see movement at the rear bushing where the control arm is moving in and out. It was difficult to capture on video.

 

I could easily be wrong.

 

why do you think you need aftermarket ball joints? are you SURE you need aftermarket adjustable ones? If you really are, then prepare to spend much more than $500...you only get what you pay for, you get cheap parts you won't like it in the long run and you're going to do much more harm than good. you gotta pay to play, there is NO getting around that

 

Not sure, but I'm going to guess and say no. There appears to be a lot of play and slop in those. I'm definitely not going with SPC after reading all the recent reviews about them.