UBJ Blown and outer tire wear. OME 881 & 5100. What gives? (Was Front End & Brake Conundrum.)

Well front end issues are back. Shimmy at high speeds and outside tire wear.

It has been about 15K miles and my upper drivers side ball joint is shot. MOOG unit. Going to replace it this weekend with a Toyota unit but what would make it fail so fast? Noticed the drivers side boot is also torn. Anything i should review?

I am running levelers on top of my 881's & 5100's.

 

I don't think MOOGs are known to be very reliable. Try to get a 555 brand if you can find them, maybe Lowrange Offroad sells them, can't remember. It sounds like your alignment is messed up from the lift, hence bad CV angles (too much lift) and blown UBJ (alignment?). It doesn't sound like you do, but do you have aftermarket UCAs so you can achieve proper alignment #s?

 

Thank you @goldentaco03

I have stock UCA's. (and LCA's) Did not think you needed to upgrade them when using 881's and 5100's. FWIW my truck sees light trail work a few times a year and is mostly highway. Also i had alignments done after all the work was done.

 

Uploaded a few images of my suspension at rest with tires on the ground.

The clear rocking that i felt at lunch is gone. Loaded or unloaded. Tires straight, left or right it is solid. I am still going to take it apart.

any more info to share about my UBJ at rest and my lift? Am I out of range?

 

Dude... I get a crazy pull to the right when I brake.
As I was typing this I somehow remembered this happened to me a long time ago, and now its back.
I did some searching and it looks after I replaced my bushings, the pull disappeared. For some reason its back. I will inspect bushings.
I'm impressed with how many things you tried haha.


Thread:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...king-and-hub-doesnt-spin-freely.552693/page-2

 

I mean I’ve definitely seen worse on here. I think 5100s are a longer shock so you’re gonna get 2-3” of lift depending on the setup+ your spacer. Ideally you’d have after market UCAs to fix your caster, but plenty of people with 2-3” lifts don’t have them. Do you have your alignment sheet from the shop that did your alignment? Premature UBJ wear is definitely a weird one...

 

Time flies and this whole COVID mess does not help so it has been more like 2+ years since i installed the 5100's and 881. The MOOG UBJ would have been within 6 months of that. Last Alignment attached. I should also note that both of my front tires are totally shot on the outside edges and i am feeling high speed shimmies.

Help me understand. Looking at my UBJ it sure seems canted way over. Like if i was to compress the suspension it would run out of travel and blow out. I have had a knock in the suspension for a little while now that happens when i go up driveways at an angle with more than slow speed. (Quick left or right hand turn into a parking lots for instance.) I swear was coming from the rear but have never found it. Now i wonder...

Does the UCA lower the attachment point of the UBJ and put it into a more neutral position? Does it pull it in? What is it doing to correct this?

Doing some research last night on UCA's.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/uca-choices-explained.466092/
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/oem-ish-parts-recommendations.673762/


UBJ vs Uniball. I think the UBJ is fine and was looking at the JBA units. (JBA-10.00.HC.EZ)

https://jbaoffroad.com/jba-std-high-caster-upper-a-arms-for-toyota-tacoma-1996-2004.html

Anyways. Would appreciate any insight before i go spend money.

 

Your caster is definitely maxed out, but it sounds like your outer tire wear would be a camber issue. Caster may have some affect but I don’t think it would blow out your ball joints and cause that much tire wear. Plenty of people on here run lifts without aftermarket UCAs.

If anything your ball joint would bottom out on full droop. Your UCA when truck is sitting level should be pretty much level, maybe drooped down a few degrees below level (again though depends on how much lift). Your UCA definitely is drooped down a good bit. Do you have your sway at removed? If so then that’s your problem, your sway bar limits droop so without it either your shock is going to bottom out or some suspension components are gonna make contact in this case it would the the UCA contacting the spindle and putting undue stress in the UBJ.

 

Thank you@goldentaco03. I have new UCA's coming. My sway bar is installed. Everything is stock, new and installed other than the 881's and 5100's. All parts were replaced or rebuilt other than the steering box. (I did replace the inner and outer tie rod ends) What i do no remember is what setting the 5100 are set at but i think it was Zero as i was not trying to lift any more than i had to. I was just trying to get the truck level with the 5 pack rear springs which lifted more than i anticipated.

As i mentioned earlier i also remember it being difficult to install the 5100 because i had to compress it to get the lower bolt in. That may be normal. Not sure. I also do not have anything hitting that i know of other than the knock i was trying to located.

I guess i will be taking things apart again and check things out. While installing the new UCA's i will report what i find. Understand it should be level or close to it.

THANK YOU for the help.

 

No problem, maybe if you change the title of this thread you’ll get some more attention and someone else may be able to chime in

 

That is a good idea. Did not know you could just change the title at will. This was a thread i stated a few years back so thought i would keep it in one place.

Thank you.

 

Going to cross post.
I just resolved my hard pull to the right. Years ago it was the LCA bushings. I did the rack at the same time. Fixed the pull. That rack died a few months ago and I replaced it. Slowly I was getting a hard pull. Turns out I didn’t torque the rack enough. Filmed the rack while turning parked , lot of movement. Torqued to 123 and 141 ft lb. Was very loose. Brakes straight as an arrow now FYI for anyone searching.

 

Thank you @frenchee. I will look at that while i am in there. I will be looking at EVERYTHING again for torque and/or wear.

 

Definitely. Film the rack when the truck tires are on the ground with weight. If it is jacked up (no weight), you will not see the movement (I didnt).

 

Thought i would update this. The problem was blown Upper Ball Joints from what i can only say is from the lift. Many have done what i originally did as my lift was not absurd but both UBJ's were blown. I installed JBA UCA & UBJ's about a year ago. From the geometry point of view they are great and easy to install. I shot my self in the foot installing them and use the wrong grease. They creak like a son-of-a-gun. I have taken them apart and cleaned them out. Used the right grease and the creak is alot less but still there. No shimmy & shake though so that is good.

 

What grease gave you issues? I have JBA arms and I'm using Lucas red N tacky for the bushings and the ball joint. Been installed for about a year. Other than the original rubber boots failing (now fixed) they seem silent and fine.

 

I used Lucas red N tacky. I did not replace the pivot bolt but used all of their spacers and shims. After talking with JBA they said you have to use something with Moly on the urethan bushings as stated in the manual. The UBJ did not matter. Just the bushings. They suggested to pump the red out but that really did not change anything. I then took them apart and cleaned all the red out. That reduced the creak by alot but not all the way. I reached again to JBA asking if i needed to remove the bushing from the arm to get the rest out but they declined to respond. (Radio silence) I personally think i need to push out the bushings to completely solve this but do not have time right now and do not want to ruin them.

JBA was the cheapest solution but i cannot say i am totally happy at this point.

 

Good to know. Interesting that the red N tacky isn’t giving me any issues. There are probably other folks using that grease or some other non moly grease in their JBA bushings too. When you talked about the upper BJs being blown, I’m assuming that was before you installed the JBAs, and hence the reason for the change?

 

Yes. I did a moderate lift on my front end. OME881 plus 1" caps. (I think 1" anyways. forget now) Nothing crazy but it did not work for me and blew out both UBJ's after about 4 months. (Trashed my tires too before i figured it out) The JBA's were to change the UBJ geometry as opposed to putting new stock UBJ's in and hoping it would not happen again.