Total Chaos LBJ Uniball - Install and Tech

[JZiggy]

Total Chaos 1" Uniball conversion kit for the lower ball joints. In this writeup I'll share the install, stud upgrades, custom boots, custom center bolts, and operational feedback.

Last fall I upgraded my LBJs to the 7/8" uniball conversion kit offered by Anonymous Fab. On the whole I was quite happy with it. The kit worked well, fit just like factory not requiring an alignment, and AF offered custom upper caps and lower boots to keep the uniball clean.

The AF 7/8" uniball is held together on each side with a single 3/8-24 high strength bolt. Theoretically this should be plenty strong with a tensile strength of over 10kip (that's 10,000 lbf) and there would only be an issue if this bolt was improperly torqued. However, some of my more knowledgeable contacts informed me that they were aware of field failures, even providing pictures of the failures with broken center bolts. Well crap, I invested in this to have a fully bombproof solution that I could forget about, so I decided to upgrade to the TC kit. Fortunately AF was cool and allowed me to return the kit. He is currently working on a 1" upgrade (no longer offering his 7/8" kit, interestingly enough), and even offered to upgrade me to that kit when he was done. It may very well be a great solution but I was ready to move on.

Starting point for reference: here are the OEM balljoints (I had reinstalled them after sending the AF kit back) with OEM black bolts.

The TC kit was spendy but I was able to find a small discount to lessen the pain. The fit and finish is really top notch.

Some features of the TC kit:
- Cerakote'ed for durability
- Center ring locks into the bottom of the spindle to provide more shear strength
- The body is flat rather than angled like OEM, allowing the outer tie rods to attach higher up with the studs facing down. On a lifted truck this lets the tie rods be closer to level (helping bumpsteer) and it shortens them slightly.

Before installing them I wanted to improve on the overall setup with the following:
- Upgrade the bolts to ARP studs
- Devise a top cap to keep crap out of the uniball but allow lubrication with PTFE dry lube spray
- Devise a lower boot for the same reason
- Ensure there was no interference with the CV dust shield (which turns out to be a bit larger than ADD)

So here goes!

 

[JZiggy]

ARP stud upgrade

The OEM black bolts are a great fastener, as Spiker Engineering knows well, but since there's no kill like overkill I wanted to see if I could get an upgraded solution. I've always liked the idea of using studs since repeat install doesn't stress the threads in the knuckle and clamp force is move even and controlled with a nut & stud vs a bolt.

ARP offers a range of metric studs in their special stainless material. Stainless is nice since these fasteners get a lot of road debris. The OEM bolts have "11" stamped on the heads meaning Toyota thinks they are a class 11 fastener, with an ideal strength of 160ksi (or 1100MPa in metric). The ARP stainless is rated at 170ksi so it's a bit stronger.

The 48mm stud kit from ARP was a great fit

They have little 4mm hex drivers in the end making them easy to install. The extra length on the outer bolt holes is about the same as OEM, so no fitment problems. Nuts are 12-point 12mm headed. On the outer holes I installed the studs til they bottomed out (snugged hand tight only) and the rear ones I backed out a couple threads to make them even with the front -- still the same thread engagement in the knuckle as OEM.

I installed the stud ends with blue loctite (later realized red would be better so they don't come out when removing the nut). On ARP's recommendation I used ARP lube (which is a kind of anti-seize) under the nut where it meets the washer. Blue loctite put inside the nuts.

Sneak preview of the custom boot, picture showing that the free length of the stud is just long enough to allow full thread engagement, with comparison to the OEM black bolts

Another preview showing the final installation. I used 54 ft-lbf as per ARP's guidelines

 

[JZiggy]

Let's talk about the custom lower boot. I don't like the idea of an exposed uniball so I took the time to find a solution. I played around with tie rod and balljoint dust boots to find something that would fit up inside the cup of the uniball housing and around the OD of the lower adapter, but nothing really worked. Eventually I found a boot that I could trim down and have it fit over the cup of the housing -- even better!

After a little cutting and trimming

Also had to trim around the bolt holes to make room for the fasteners. The zip tie will go on as the very last step once the unit is installed on the truck. I have a 1/2" extension in there to wiggle the joint around and make sure the boot stays in place.

Comparison with OEM

 

[JZiggy]

Top cap and center bolt

Now for some slightly more convoluted stuff...

I wanted to figure out how to use a top cap to help minimize junk getting into the uniball from the top. There's a nice nylon hole plug on Amazon that fits just perfect. The little scuff on top is wear marks from the dust shield -- just a tiny bit of interference.

What this shows me is that the dust shield is even with the top of the upper round feature of the uniball. Problem is, the funny 12-point headed bolt that TC sends with the kit extends above the top! A little hard to see, but the top of the bolt actually hits the dust shield:

I think the manual hub CVs must be a larger diameter. Obviously to make all this work I need to modify the bolt or use a different style of bolt. Let's take a look at the bolts and how they fit into the top of the uniball adapter:

The 12-point portion is really small and is only there to put a wrench on it. The flange is 1/4" thick and does all the load bearing for the bolt. I don't know the grade of this bolt but the supplied nut is silver, which is usually a dead giveway for grade 5. TC also specs the tightening torque as 125 ft-lbf which lines up with a standard install torque for a 5/8-18 grade 5 bolt.

I upgraded to a grade 8 bolt and matching grade 8 locknut. The head is definitely too tall, but only needed to be sanded down a moderate amount for a perfect fit. Head height is still 0.25" -- same as the custom TC bolt, but now the bolt gets tightened with a 15/16" 6-point socket. I'll still use the 125 ft-lbf spec from TC but the strength of this bolt is about 25% higher.

At full articulation the head now does not extend above the top of the housing

A little black paint and we're ready to go

 

[JZiggy]

Install time!

I used a bit of the ARP lube (fancy anti-seize) on the adapters

Uniball gets placed on the LCA, a bit of ARP lube on the locknut, then torqued to 125 ft-lbf

Cap put on top, and the knuckle is dropped down to meet with the uniball

Clearance looks good now! Nuts torqued to 54 ft-lbf and the zip-tie put on the boot.

The tie rods get flipped and installed from the top

I drilled an angled hole in the top cap to fit a spray straw in. First idea was to do it from the back but it works better having the hole in the front. You get the idea

And a comparison of how the TC uniball changes the steering geometry: before & after

 

[JZiggy]

Reserved 6 - Feedback on alignment, ride, breakin, etc., coming soon!

For future reference, some tech on PTFE uniballs and their breakin process: https://www.rbcbearings.com/pdfs/aero/Plain/018_050/SB_RE_JN_Eng.pdf

 

[jgue467]

Absolutely stunning work for us mere mortals to see!!

 

[Spiker Engineering]

This is brilliant! And I like the use of stainless ARP hardware, given [MENTION=5345]habanero[/MENTION]'s post about how quickly the carbon steel ARP bolts rust. Plus stainless is what we (almost) always used in aerospace applications.

I'll try to do some torque tests of the ARP studs and nuts to see what preload we get at those torque values. I suspect that especially with their lube, it'll be a very high preload (which is good). And probably very consistent (also good).

 

[JZiggy]

This is brilliant! And I like the use of stainless ARP hardware, given [MENTION=5345]habanero[/MENTION]'s post about how quickly the carbon steel ARP bolts rust. Plus stainless is what we (almost) always used in aerospace applications.

I'll try to do some torque tests of the ARP studs and nuts to see what preload we get at those torque values. I suspect that especially with their lube, it'll be a very high preload (which is good). And probably very consistent (also good).

Thank you!! And great to have a real research engineer looking into my fastener selection

 

[Spiker Engineering]

Thank you!! And great to have a real research engineer looking into my fastener selection

My pleasure! One additional benefit of switching from bolts to studs is the ability to use locknuts and not have to rely on any threadlockers. I see a lot of LBJ failures described as "one or two of the bolts fell out over time, then the others sheared", so I think that bolt locking is as important as what bolt to use. Switching to locknuts would address this failure mode very robustly.

So in principle, I can use using red loctite to lock the studs into the knuckle, then prevailing torque locknuts to clamp the assembly. You'd know that the locking feature was effective by measuring the running torque during installation, and then you'd apply the appropriate preload torque above the running torque.

I'll look around for available high strength metric stainless locknuts. So far I came across these, which are not nearly as strong as A286, but probably strong enough (remember that nuts don't need to be as strong as bolts) - Just a moment...

 

[gh25_]

Absolutely awesome write up. Love stuff like this. Isn't that cool how you managed to make the TC uniball upgrade even better! I didn't like also how the total chaos one didn't have any type of covers or boot especially since the LBJ is really prone to getting tons of dirt dust and mud on it because of it's position on the vehicle. I think total chaos designed it that way on purpose without a boot or covers so that the uniballs wear faster and you have to buy replacements from them... haha. Just my speculation. With the cover on top and the boot on bottom wreckon those suckers will last quite a while! Also didn't know that the way they designed the TC billet lbj bracket turns the tie rods the other way and gives them a better angle. So sick. This whole post was just lots of eye candy for me haha. Especially those ARP studs and bolts. Also if you don't mind what boot did you get that from on the bottom? I will definitely be doing this to my TC LBJ conversion one day when I get it.

 

[JZiggy]

Forum hiccup, let's try this again...

I had a looming question about whether or not reducing the head height was going to compromise the integrity of the 5/8 bolts in the uniballs. The total tensile failure strength of a grade 8 bolt is 46 kip (thousands of pounds) but with the install torque of 125 ft-lbf this is only applying 20 kip. With a reduced head height of 0.25" the shear area of the head should take 73 kip before failure. But I wanted to try the empirical approach to confirm we're OK.

Got a shorter 5/8-18 grade 8 bolt and put it in a drilled out M16 nut to clamp against. I cut the head down to 0.2", so a bit less that what I was using.

The M16 nut goes into the wrench held in the vise, put a locknut with ARP lube on the end, and I put successively higher torque on it until I hit 250 ft-lbf which is the highest my wrench goes, and 2x the install torque we're using. It didn't break so we are A-OK

 

[2TH4IST]

Like the stud idea! When I get around to replacing them I'll throw in the studs. Hmm lock nuts are a good idea, any thought of stainless on stainless galling? Almost every stainless on stainless fastener I have touched have galled together....maybe low quality stainless?

 

[HiluxSurf SSR-G]

not even a deformation of the bolt head? :cheers::rockon:

Forum hiccup, let's try this again...

 

[JZiggy]

Like the stud idea! When I get around to replacing them I'll throw in the studs. Hmm lock nuts are a good idea, any thought of stainless on stainless galling? Almost every stainless on stainless fastener I have touched have galled together....maybe low quality stainless?

Yeah I wouldn't want to use a distorted-thread stainless locknut. Galling would be an issue for sure. Nylock would be fine in that regard. I'm just using loctite.

 

[JZiggy]

I've driven about 1500 miles since installing this kit included about 100 on fire roads and offroad. Here's some feedback about driving quality and manners as the units have broken in somewhat.

When first driving after install the steering is quite stiff and the steering wheel did not return to center in any situation. Taking turns around town I have to return the wheel deliberately back to center. In the first few miles I took it in for the alignment and the tech said man, this thing feels like it has negative caster! How do you even drive it?? (Note it does actually have 4.5* of caster) Getting up to highway speed the first time was downright scary. Above 55mph the backend wants to sway a lot and it was a white knuckle experience until I got used to its manners. Since the front end doesn't return to a straight travel line instantly like I'm used to every little sideways movement needs correction with steering input.

So I decided to keep it at low speed, around-town duty for a while, hitting every pothole and speedbump possible to help break the joints in. After a couple hundred miles the uniballs broke in enough to improve its manners significantly, and I was able to carefully do highway driving again.

After the first time I went offroad, pounding along over 50 miles of bumpy terrain as fast as possible (LOL) it broke in a good bit more. By the 1000 mile mark the highway manners were still touchy but 50x better than at first.

It still has more breaking in to do, but the overall manners after 1500 miles are now pretty nearly back to stock. The steering wheel returns to center short of about the last 1/4 to 1/8 turn. Highway driving is fine even at 75mph (as fast the the 3RZ can go ) and I don't have to have two hands on the wheel to keep it in the lane.

My hope is that the uniballs will wear enough to get the feel back to stock balljoints. Around that time I'll pull the units back off to inspect them and see how loose they feel by hand. Note that Total Chaos mentions in their install guide that it may take 5000 miles for them to break in.

 

[Devbot]

After the first time I went offroad, pounding along over 50 miles of bumpy terrain as fast as possible (LOL) it broke in a good bit more. By the 1000 mile mark the highway manners were still touchy but 50x better than at first.

Careful, that's how I ended up with a broken steering knuckle and stranded about 25 miles away from the nearest town

 

[JZiggy]

Careful, that's how I ended up with a broken steering knuckle and stranded about 25 miles away from the nearest town

Thanks. I'm hoping that the JBA upper balljoints and the knuckle gussets will protect me :becky:

 

[Devbot]

Thanks. I'm hoping that the JBA upper balljoints and the knuckle gussets will protect me :becky:

I have both of them too, but I didn't weld in a strap around the ring that connects to the UBJ like what Timmy said we should do so it split right open :doh:
That, or its because I caused a crack to form when welding them initially... damn cast iron... at either rate I'd heavily recommend reinforcing that ring while you can :thumb:

 

[2TH4IST]

Thanks for the update. Damn TC says 5k possible break in!? I don't even drive that many miles in a year lol. Hmm I've been looking at this for a bit. I'll put it on the back burner for a while now.

Keep us updated!