DIY adj. upper control arms?
 

anyone ever think of undergoing this? ive searched and searched but the only thing that comes up are the TC sportline, and at 300$ F and 300$ R, im out.. haha. i could easily get the materials to build this for less then 100$ for F and R. i have seen absolutely 0 other makers. i have all the equiptment and have done extended long travel kits for rangers/toyota trucks before, so i doubt it would be too involved. just a simple fabricated upper control arm on a small rod end for adjustability. id make an exact jig of the oem arm and go from there. im kinda puzzled why this hasnt been done by anyone before?

I've asked myself about this as well, however regarding the Front and Rear LCA's on our cars.. A few older Porsche buddies who at one point couldn't replace their ball joints either, finally had someone who designed a replacement balljoint kit for their cars..

If you have the materials and can build this with proof of its durability and it being adjustable would definitely have many interested parties.

But first, have any pics of the ones you have built for the rangers/toyo's?

Jae

I've thought about doing this as well, but i still can't find the proper rod/heim end and bolt that goes into the knuckle. Maybe i'm just not searching hard enough. But i've got access to a tig welder and all the tubing. Go for it man, if you jump on it, then i'll back off and put my name on the list of people who'd buy a set. Cause i really need them.

wish i did!!! my computer crashed and took all my pics along with it. i can go by the kids house and see if i can snap some pics, its still goin strong! goin on 2 years of abuse from him. the upper arm was 1x.120 DOM with .120 cold rolled plate. no bushings, used 7/8" heims on the U/LCA frame intersection and 1" horizontal uniballs on the spindle intersections. i made jigs of the stock arms and extended each equally. its mainly a dezert beater and im not sure how it would wear tires as a pavement queen. but just an UCA thats oem spec with a but of in/out(camber) adjustability should be simple, rather then a full kit.

theres a bunch of local fabrication part distr. out my way, since prerunners are so popular. my good friend actually owns a fab shop and im sure he stocks everything needed, only thing i could see being an issue is whether to drill out the stock spindle to accept a bolt, OR to have a piece machined at the correct pitch the balljoint shaft is stock. hmmm. i doubt many people would want to drill their spindles. cuz then ONLY an after market arm would be your option w/o changing out the spindle. a "bolt on" and "reversable" UCA would prolly be best suited.

yeah, that's exactly what i was thinking. clearly TCS has figured something out, and i spent hours trying to find something similar to what they used on their UCAs. if you could, talk to your buddy and see if he can get something that'll fit. i'd been leaning towards just saving the money for the TCS arms, since i desperately need the camber correction.

wellp i decided to buy an extra set of spindles from the junkyard. gonna drill it out for a heim and run it. keeping my stock spindles arms in the mean time. also going to cut and weld my spindles to quicken up the steering and gain some more angkle while im at it. i just got a job so i should have the funds for this in a few weeks. ill keep everyone posted when i start to build them. i crunched numbers and for 175$ in just materials i can make F and R with poly bushings.

Nice. If you do start to build up a set, are you going to build them in such a way to compensate for a lowered car? So that at ride height, the heim joint is neutral and centered? Keep us updated!

just fyi:
if you need to correct a lot of camber, running a tcs or adjustable uca isn't the best option. When you correct the camber, you'll need to obviously make the uca longer. This + the angle that your whole suspension geometry is at due to the lowered ride height can stretch the axle out, which isn't something you want. It would also make it a lot harder to fit tire under the fender because you'll effectively be pushing the tire towards the fender.
Making a shorter/adjustable lca would probably be more beneficial, since it wouldn't be putting much as much stress on the axle, and tire clearance wouldn't be as big an issue.