I hate to create new threads… but couldn’t find this anywhere.

It has been my practice to not tighten anything with a rubber bushing (such as lower shock bolts) until the vehicle is on the ground. If not, you’re “loading” your bushings by just putting it on the ground. You should torque them when it’s at its resting position.

In all the videos and write ups I’ve seen, when the UCA is installed, I’ve never seen anyone mention when to tighten the long bolt. When does the long UCA bolt get torqued? I haven’t seen everything, but that step is left out. I have seen multiple ones where they tighten it while it’s in the air at full droop. That seems wrong.

My factory UCAs had a lot of tension in them so when you popped the ball joint loose it wanted to shoot upwards. (That was when I just installed my coilovers.) When I replaced the UCAs later, I loosened the long bolt first and there was zero tension when I disconnected the ball joint. All the upward force was from bushing tension. So should I have pushed the UCA up to tighten the bolt, then pull the UCA down to connect the ball joint like with the factory condition? I didn’t. I just jacked up the spindle as much as I could until the truck was coming off the stands and tightened the long bolt. Kind of like creating the geometry of it being sitting on the ground. Kinda…

I’m asking all of this because I don’t want my bushings to wear out prematurely because I missed a simple detail like this…

I feel I could probably reach in and loosen the bolt while it’s on the ground and re-tighten to “reset” the bushing. Good idea? Overthinking it…? Thoughts?

Thanks guys.

Factory UCA's should be torqued when at ride height. They have a solid rubber bushing.

Most of the aftermarket UCA's use a poly bushing with an internal sleeve that gets greased. This style can be torqued at any time.

That answers my question. Mine has the factory style rubber bushings, not poly.

I’ll retorque.