upper control arms issue.

[andrew22888]

Is it possible to put your front upper control arms on the wrong side. I put camber ball joints on my car but pulled both upper control arms off at the same time. Now they sound like they are hitting when going over hard bumps. And it pulls to the right real hard. It did pull a little before install but now it pulls very hard. Just wondering if you could put the left on the right and the right on the left.

[Jarrett]

You can but you would have had a bear of a time getting the upper ball joints into the knuckles.

What is likely happening is that you are lowered more than two inches which any lowering thread on here will tell you will cause the upper control arms to hit the inner fender when camber is corrected. It's a price you pay for trying to look dope.

[andrew22888]

Oh ok that makes sense they went in very quickly so ya not a issue. But it kind of sucks that your upper control arms smack the inner fender. I guess I'll have to look into that thanks jarret. Also if your car is out of alignment and you correct the camber will it seem like it's out of alignment worse?

[Jarrett]

If your car was out of alignment and you lowered it without planning to give immediate consideration to that, you're doing it wrong. How are you "fixing" camber without an alignment telling you what the specs are?

Once you've got your car aligned then, depending on how much you're lowered you can either knock out the inner fender where it's hitting with a sledge or you can cut a clearance hole through the shock tower.

[crazymikey]

Instead of making a new thread, I'm having a similar issue.

I'm on F&F Type 1's. Obviously, with the drop, I had massive negative camber, so I got an adjustable anchor bolt kit.

Since installing that, my camber has been corrected, but like the OP, my UCA's are slamming into my strut towers and the car rides like I'm on ebay sleeves.

My wagon had the anchor bolts and the strut towers were cut out. I don't think a hammer will move enough metal to give me clearance. Will using EF UCA's help?

What options have I got? Cutting open my strut towers is my last resort.

[dj_ender]

Instead of making a new thread, I'm having a similar issue.

I'm on F&F Type 1's. Obviously, with the drop, I had massive negative camber, so I got an adjustable anchor bolt kit.

Since installing that, my camber has been corrected, but like the OP, my UCA's are slamming into my strut towers and the car rides like I'm on ebay sleeves.

My wagon had the anchor bolts and the strut towers were cut out. I don't think a hammer will move enough metal to give me clearance. Will using EF UCA's help?

What options have I got? Cutting open my strut towers is my last resort.

If I'm not mistaken EF UCA's will cause you to have even MORE neg camber.

[crazymikey]

Well then....we don't want that now do we.

Sounds like I;m left with hammering the shit out of my strut towers, or cutting them.

[i-07]

hmm never had that problem but i didn't go that low.

you could check to see what part of the uca is hiting and maybee bend or trim that or last resort bang out that area in the wheel wells

[belac515]

Instead of making a new thread, I'm having a similar issue.

I'm on F&F Type 1's. Obviously, with the drop, I had massive negative camber, so I got an adjustable anchor bolt kit.

Since installing that, my camber has been corrected, but like the OP, my UCA's are slamming into my strut towers and the car rides like I'm on ebay sleeves.

My wagon had the anchor bolts and the strut towers were cut out. I don't think a hammer will move enough metal to give me clearance. Will using EF UCA's help?

What options have I got? Cutting open my strut towers is my last resort.

This is just a thought, since EF UCA's are supposed to give you around 6 degrees of negative camber i believe (please correct me if I'm wrong). Could you possibly try running them with a camber kit and dial in some positive camber to get a reasonable amount of camber?

Then the UCA would be shorter so it wouldn't hit the strut towers and your camber wouldn't be ridiculous.

This is just a thought, anyone know if this would be possible?

[Jarrett]

Your only option besides hammering or cutting the shock towers is to raise the vehicle back up a bit. I'm lowered roughly 1.25-1.5" on Function & Form Type 1s and I don't have any problems at all. It does look a bit lowered but I don't look "slammed". However, I was concerned with function over form.

[HardInThePaint]

Sounds like I;m left with hammering the shit out of my strut towers, or cutting them.

Hammer them. Cats don't usually go this route because its time consuming and most are just lazy but thats how I've always done it and it has always worked for me. And this is when I was riding on Sprint Extremes (3.25 drop springs), so camber correction was definitely a must do.

Since your shit has been hitting, if you look up into your shock tower you should be able to see the marks from uca. Use a torch to soften the metal up a bit and then use a ball peen hammer and smack that shit. Just keep heating and banging until you achieve the desired result. Bang it out as much as possible and then ride on it and it should be corrected. I remember doing this one time and my shit still hit very very slightly but after riding on it for a week or so it stopped (I believe the uca finally just made a small niche and it corrected itself out really).

With that being said, I would never cut. Not only does it compromise the structural integrity of the vehicle but it just looks like shit.

Note: You can use whatever you feel the need to use for hammering. Whatever works best for you. You just need something that you can get a good amount of leverage on (which sometimes can be hard because of the confined space you have to work in). You can also use a solid pipe or something to that effect coupled with a large hammer (a small sledge would be ideal) and stick the pipe up in the there and bang it with the sledge. Just try a couple of different approaches, but the shit works trust me.

[Fatman88]

I had this issue a while back with my top nut of my camber kit hitting the inside of the shock tower. I know recently they changed the design of the camber kit so it had a slimmer top nut. Before that was available i cut a small hole on both sides so the top nut had more room to travel.
I will post pictures of my shock towers for reference.
Even though i think it looks acceptable I would not do it again.

[wildBill83]

This is just a thought, since EF UCA's are supposed to give you around 6 degrees of negative camber i believe (please correct me if I'm wrong). Could you possibly try running them with a camber kit and dial in some positive camber to get a reasonable amount of camber?

Then the UCA would be shorter so it wouldn't hit the strut towers and your camber wouldn't be ridiculous.

This is just a thought, anyone know if this would be possible?

Go ahead and try and find a camber kit that will adjust out 6deg. You can get close with a 2.5deg extreme ball joint and 2.5deg anchor bolt, but that will put your upper ball joint in just about the same location and you will be banging your UCA into your tower and forhead into a wall for wasting so much time and money. Plus having multiple camber kits on is not safe nor recommended.

[belac515]

Go ahead and try and find a camber kit that will adjust out 6deg. You can get close with a 2.5deg extreme ball joint and 2.5deg anchor bolt, but that will put your upper ball joint in just about the same location and you will be banging your UCA into your tower and forhead into a wall for wasting so much time and money. Plus having multiple camber kits on is not safe nor recommended.

I never said to adjust out all of the negative camber. The Ingalls ball joint kit is said to can give you +3 degrees camber, which would bring the total to negative 3 degrees which is fine.

[wildBill83]

I never said to adjust out all of the negative camber. The Ingalls ball joint kit is said to can give you +3 degrees camber, which would bring the total to negative 3 degrees which is fine.

So you buy wrong UCAs and camber kits to get you where you would be with stock UCAs and no camber kit? And no, -3deg is not fine, which is why camber kits go up to 3deg of adjustment.