Front upper A-arm installation advice

[Solfive]

I just purchased Metalcloaks front upper a-arms and am looking for guidance to install them myself if possible. Everybody here was great help when I swapped my badlands suspension for Eibach coilovers and it made the job much easier than some of the videos floating around the internet. I guess the biggest question I have is what do I have to be most careful of messing up so I don’t cost myself irritation and/or more money fixing other stuff lol. I’ve used the search function but I really didn’t find anything useful and the only videos I’ve found on the web aren’t step by step tutorials. Any help or even being pointed in the right direction is very much appreciated!

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[SierraBronco]

Off the top of my head my first thought is the steering shaft as you’ll need to move it out of the way to get the bolt out on the driver side. But I’m pretty sure it’s designed where you can’t put it on incorrectly. I put alignment marks on ours and seatbelted the steering wheel in place anyway just to be safe.

I’d also suggest doing dual shear UCA mounts while you have it all apart. They’re inexpensive but you have to weld them in. Definitely a good thing to do though.

Not familiar with the MetalCloak UCA and whether they have jam nuts or not. If they do have jam nuts get a crows foot so you can torque them properly. Might also need one for the ball joint (just depends on how it is built. The arms we have use a uniball and you hold the bolt in place with a 7/8 wrench. No crowfoot necessary) And it’s easier to torque them up before attaching the knuckle.

 

[Solfive]

Awesome, thanks!

 

[SierraBronco]

Awesome, thanks!

Edited to add a note on possibly needing a crowsfoot for torquing if they use balljoints.

 

[SierraBronco]

Found them. Disregard crows feet. You won't need them

 

[Solfive]

Found them. Disregard crows feet. You won't need them

Perfect!!

 

[Oldhippie]

Don’t let the knuckle/axle drop too far and pull the CV apart…

 

[V1Rotate]

Don’t let the knuckle/axle drop too far and pull the CV apart…

Probably the easiest way to cause yourself some extra work here. Just cause its easy I'd definitely remove the axle nut and dead blow the half shaft loose.. but definitely not required for this job if you're halfway careful.

That said leaving the tie rod at least loosely attached to the knuckle helps keep things under control

 

[Solfive]

Don’t let the knuckle/axle drop too far and pull the CV apart…

Thank you, I’ll certainly be cognizant of that now.

 

[Solfive]

Probably the easiest way to cause yourself some extra work here. Just cause its easy I'd definitely remove the axle nut and dead blow the half shaft loose.. but definitely not required for this job if you're halfway careful.

That said leaving the tie rod at least loosely attached to the knuckle helps keep things under control

Thanks for the advice, I probably wouldn’t have considered that without your guys input. Much appreciated!

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