Freedom Offroad UCA

Does anyone have expierience with these upper control arms?

 

Been eyeing this myself for a while now. Hope someone can put in some real input instead of "spend $300 more and get what i have"

 

I have these. They seem to work fine. They'e been on for about 6-8 months. They look nice, but as far as camber goes, I'm in spec, but I still can see some positivity. I'e recently realized I need to replace my lower bushings though and maybe a ball joint. I don't know for sure if it's worth it as I put these in with my lift. I have Bilstien 5100s at 0 with 887 coils for about 3" of lift. I just lost one of the caps the other day... damn. The only other thing, being the first time I ever did work on a front suspension like this, I reused the washers on the outside of the bushings and I remember reading somewhere not to. They don't come with new washers though. I haven't had any major issues. Any other input?

 

very similar setup to what I will be doing.

 

Yeah it is a great set up. It is a nice ride, I've just have been replacing every wearing suspension part so my truck does not ride smooth for long before I'm emptying my wallet again. I expected this though. I bought it with 150k I have 168k now and it is 5 years old!

 

I have about 184K on my truck

 

All in all, I'm happy with them for the price compared to others. I wish I had saved up for SPC adjustable UCAs only for more adjustable freedom, but they are holding up and my truck drives straight and tires wear even. They are fine. They look pretty sharp too.

I found some brand new SPCs online from a guy, talked him down to 200 bucks! (Retail is like 650ish) and the day I was ready to go get them he had already sold them. Shame

 

I’ve had my eye on these for a while as well. The price makes them very tempting.

 

If you go directly to their website they are a little cheaper with free shipping

https://www.freedomoffroadusa.com/fo-t701fu-tacoma-04-15-tacoma-prerunner05-front-upper-arm.html

 

I never had my stock ones on with the lift, so I can't say for sure they are better, but they advertise for 2"-4" lift and they work for my 3" lift and look nice so I say pull the trigger if you don't want to spend 700 bucks. It gets the job done.

 

Damn, good eye. I went through Ebay

 

I threw my 'Stein stickers on for the hell of it. The odd thing is their logo is backwards installed... I know some people didn't trust them for that reason but whatever they'e okay

 

I'm a sneaky little snake

 

the biggest downside to these that I am seeing is that they don't appear to be serviceable. So when they start to wear out, you have to replace them, where with the more expensive options like allpro, total chaos, camburg, dirt king, you can pretty cheaply, replace the bushings and uniballs and they are good as new.

 

replacements cost about $30 so ive seen

 

I saw these a while back and have been wondering about them. I'm sure they just buy a set of "X" brand UCA's measure them and then knock them off. They look beefy and I'm sure work just as good as anything else. It might be worth the time to order some nice bushings and keep an eye on the ball joints.

 

For these or for the others I mentioned. These bushings look like they are pressed in similar to stock. It is possible to replace them, but a royal pain in the ass. Most people end up using a torch and melting the old rubber out and then swapping to delrin or poly bushings

 

Yeah these are like any others, press out balljoint, press new one in. There are also zerk fittings for greasing the bushings and balljoint. They came with new bushings that weren't difficult to install. I assume they wouldn't be any more difficult to replace than others. Thoughts?

 

I feel like that is with any control arm bushing after they have been worn out, is it not? For the price of the arms, you could upgrade bushings initially.

I have a question because I have only been at this a little over a year now. Is it okay to reuse the stock washers on the UCA bushings?

I have had no issues, but one side of my truck looks flush and A-okay, but the other side, the stock washers seem concave and there seems to be a small gap. I know they are considered "unusable" after taken off, but is it actually going to hurt anything? I went ahead and reused them because I had to get the truck back together and ran into that info during the tear down. I'll post some pictures shortly. Thanks!

 

Wonder what the specs on the ball joints are? Do you think or did they look like OEM Toyota style balljoints or were they different looking?