Reversing UCA's (Pics)

[HARDTRAILZ]

Looks just about like my specs.

[navigator]

the guy that did it said it might pull a little to the right but with sloped roads it would kind of balance out.
It doesn't really pull but if I take my hand off the wheel it kind of drifts to the left a little. Nothing that concerns me though. As long as my tires wear pretty well I'll be ok.
I'm not really expecting perfection anyway.

[CRAMPER]

Gonna do mine this weekend!
Shouldn't be too difficult, working at a "stealership" does have its perks

[hobbstisdaman]

So what exactly needs to be cut down on the uca?

[Flying Monkey]

The inner fender at the bolt heads that hold the UCA on. In order to get them out most have to cut a little of the metal away. But be careful of things on other side of metal. Like on passenger side the washer bottle and such

[hobbstisdaman]

So pulling and prying must be out of the question then.

[Trail X]

By any means necessary.

[navigator]

I did some cutting, broke a few blades, did some beating with the big hammer etc.

[The Roadie]

By any means necessary.

I agree. Questions of this nature disturb me. You have something that needs doin'. Do it.

[fishsticks]

By any means necessary.

I agree. Questions of this nature disturb me. You have something that needs doin'. Do it.

My TB has seen the business end of a Sawzall enough times to make most non-offroaders wet themselves.

[v7guy]

So pulling and prying must be out of the question then.

On the drivers side I used a mixture of a muscle, a 5lb sledge and a crowbar. It took a little bit because one the edges is folded over which makes it tough, but it got done. The passenger side came out for me with no real drama. It's tight, but I didn't move any metal.

[The Roadie]

It's a bunch easier with a body lift, same for changing spark plugs.

[DirtyBacon04]

Well i just finished the UCA flip. From reading, i've seen that most people take about 1-2 hours to do this job. I started at 12:45 and it is now 5:05. I'll upload the pics from it when I have more time, but Bill is familiar with the issue. One of the nuts for the UCA bolts broke its weld and was spinning. So I then had to take out the strut just to get something on there to hold it still. (33mm nut, incase anyone needs to know). Cleaned off both surfaces, applied some JB Weld, and held it in place with a C-Clamp. While I was waiting for that to cure enought to reassemble, I decided to restore my head lights. Boy oh boy are they pretty now!
Pics tonight. Alignment tomorrow.

[fishsticks]

Well i just finished the UCA flip. From reading, i've seen that most people take about 1-2 hours to do this job. I started at 12:45 and it is now 5:05. I'll upload the pics from it when I have more time, but Bill is familiar with the issue. One of the nuts for the UCA bolts broke its weld and was spinning. So I then had to take out the strut just to get something on there to hold it still. (33mm nut, incase anyone needs to know). Cleaned off both surfaces, applied some JB Weld, and held it in place with a C-Clamp. While I was waiting for that to cure enought to reassemble, I decided to restore my head lights. Boy oh boy are they pretty now!
Pics tonight. Alignment tomorrow.

Seems a couple folks have had this issue now. I'd advise anyone else doing the flip to put an extra tack weld or two on each of the nuts before trying to remove them. PB Blaster is probably a good idea as well.

[DirtyBacon04]

Tack welds are a great idea, but majority of us don't have welders. So this will have to do for the mean time.

[v7guy]

I was looking at the a arms the other day with greymatter after i did the bodylift and we both were surprised how much it opens the area up. I think we are waiting to flip his until after his 2" body lift.

[DirtyBacon04]

Ok here we go.
Before angle of UBJ



Had to pull the strut out to get the nut off due to the weld breaking.


JB Weld and C-Clamp


While I was waiting for the JB to set, decided to restore headlights.
Before


After


Then reassembled and here are the after UBJ angles



Also so people have a reference as to what we're talking about with BDS upper bushings, here are the pics. Mine is doing it again only on the passenger side though.

[Lauron]

After reversing the UCAs, I found the TB to be very squirely. This was extreme with the worn out(soft) front shocks I had. Side winds would be a really fight even with stock tires. The new shocks made this tolerable but the initial experience caused me to investigate. When I removed the old front shock, I cycled the front suspension and found significant toe in on compression and toe out on extension. This was after an alignment.

My observation as to why this is happening: the UCA flipped moves the ball joint slightly farther outside which caused positive camber in my case. The alignment correction, pushing the lower control arm out, needing a significant lengthening of the tie rod to get camber in spec.

I tried moving the steering rack lower, by removing a rack bolt. This did not help. When I loosened the inner tie rod end leaving one thread engaged in the rack, I got an improvement. This pushed the pivot point out about 1/4". So my conclusion is the inner tie rod pivot point needs to be moved out board to compensate for the LCA being farther out. Anyone else observed this?

A possible solution: an adjustable inner tied rod end. The inner tied rod end screws into the steering rack with a 18 mm x 1.5 mm pitch thread. I propose to use a matching 18 mm female clevis attached to the steering rack with an 18 mm stud. Stud length to be determined. The attached FRP example is a poor boy example but I propose to use a solid clevis The clevis, unless something is available, would be custom to match the heim. To strengthen the tie rod, I would bump the rod size to 16 mm expecting to match up a male heim with a male outer tie rod end through an adjustable straight tube with weld in left and right hand thread tube adapters. I was looking for something like the attached Moog end to match our spindle.

I followed the tie rod mod using the 2500HD outer noting the taper difference.

James Downing measured and calculated the taper sizes.
"Your numbers show the 2500 as a 6.2 degree taper, stock to be 8.6 degree taper, and the heim conversion to be 7.1 degrees."

So the problem is finding out the actual dimensions of a suitable short outer end. The Moog spec only gives you part info. Anybody else have a source for the tie rod end dimensions or has some one identified a short 16 mm outer that matches our spindle with or without the need to reamer the spindle?

Thanks,

Ron

[Trail X]

Interesting... so your theory is that there is significant enough of a difference between the locations of the tie rod inner joint and the lower control arm inner joint that it creates significant roll steer?

I'll be honest, I have my UCAs flipped, and I've never really had any complaints, but I do agree that mine doesn't track great in heavy crosswinds.

Anyways, the basis of your solution is in extending the inner ball joint pivot point away from the rack, right?

As for outer tie rod ends, we've found that the full size tapers are not significantly different than ours, and can bolt right up without issue.

[HARDTRAILZ]

No issue with mine driving or being aligned w flipped uca.