justinh

are they still making their upper arms? I shot Dalon and e-mail about two weeks ago and never heard back from them, haven't had a chance to call yet, i just wasn't sure if anyone had bought from them recently....

thanks

SEAN_at_TLT

I wouldn't buy from them period. Especially with other more viable options out there.

justinh

i know that you are a big fan of total chaos but and i respect that. but i haven't heard of any bad stories from people here purchasing from them. can you enlighten me?

socal98runner

Well, I can say I won't be buying the TC front arms, not that they don't make quality stuff, because I've seen the arms up close and the workmanship is AWESOME!!!

1- They're fricken $800 for the pair!! Holy !!!!!

2- The ball joint, although MORE than enough for what I need, AND it's OPEN! Can you say SANDPAPER!?! All it would take is a little sand from the desert to get in the joint and whammo! Sandpapered balljoint!

TC, take note - BOOTS are your friends!! Especially for 800 FRIGGEN DOLLARS

The Inland Trucks arms are more than enough for what I need, IF and WHEN my factory arms start giving me problems with either clearance or the BJ goes bad.

AND, at under $300 for the pair, worth the LOOT.

justinh

on the TC, Camburg, and All-Pro arms, those aren't ball joints, those are uni-balls....there is a difference, uni-balls aren't in a bath of grease like ball-joints, they are made out of a material that is self lubircating. i would be more worried about water and grit than plain sand with those, that is what they were designed for.

SEAN_at_TLT

My dislike of Inland Trucks has zero to do with my fondness of Total Chaos, at least not directly. I dislike anything related to ATS Racing (Inland Trucks is basically ATS reincarnated) because I've had terrible experiences with them and like TC because I've had great experiences with their products every time.

Inland Trucks has strong ties to the now defunct and somewhat infamous ATS Racing. ATS racing was known for performing poor quality fab work that could have seriously hurt or even killed customers. Their products had very little R&D done on them and were made with crude jigs that were very inconsistent. Their old upper arms for our trucks almost killed me because they sent me the wrong bushings (too long) and I could only get a few threads of engagement on the long pivot bolt. So I torqued them on there and kept an eye on them. I called ATS and was told that was fine and it was supposed to be like that. Well one day on my way home from work on the freeway the nut fell off and the pivot bolt slid part way out causing my truck to tilt a few inches to one side (at 70mph!!!) I was able to pull over and figure out what happened but it could have just as easily slipped all the way out and cause the entire driver side suspension of the truck to fold over flat (basically fall off!) and easily could have cause the truck to flip on the freeway. I contacted them to tell my story and they told they would send out a new set of bushings ASAP. Well weeks later no bushings, I called back and got told that they lost my address and contact info and that a box was sitting right there for me and they would ship it that day. Well guess what weeks went by and no bushings. Conveniently during those few weeks, ATS disappeared of the face of the earth leaving lots of people like me w/zero recourse.I ended up shortening the bushings myself and selling the arms a year later for $100 and I paid about $300 for them. Inland Trucks/ATS is a shady operation that I would have nothing to do with. If you want to risk your life to save a few bucks go for it! There is always Camburgs arms for less than TC and even All-Pro makes arms now too. I guarantee any of these companies arms are ten-fold better than IT's and most importantly completely safe...

ATS also told customers their parts were powder-coated when in reality they were spray painted. ATS repeatedly lied to customers to smooth things over. The list goes on and on....

Socal98Runner,

Is your life worth more than $300? Also it is obvious that you are not terribly educated about the products in the first place which is not a bad thing but it's hard to give weight to your opinion when it's obvious you don't know what you are talking about. Even IT offers "exposed ball-joints" or whatever you called them. Uni-balls are great and durable and designed to run w/o a boot. If you are lucky enough to disconnect your factory BJ's w/o destroying them when installing the non uni-ball arms then you can save some money but otherwise just buy uni-balls and upgrade your suspension. Replacement upper arms that don't have uni-balls don't really accomplish anything anyway.

In short, my point is that there are lots of options on the market for QUALITY uni-ball arms with TC's being IMO the best but also the most expensive. So if a person doesn't want to pony up the $ for TC arms they can buy Camburg or All-Pro before resorting to risking their life.

justinh

I am sorry that you had that experience but i am glad that you let the rest of us know a real world story, like i said before most people here that have had dealing with ATS and Now Inland Trucks have had good experiences. However one hting i noticed was that Mr. Sonoran steel wasn't able to get his truck fully aligned into factory specs with the ATS arms but i have seen alignment sheets for other arms such as All-Pro where they were able to get them completely aligned within all factory specs.

My next question, which you may be able to help me with...do the arms with uni-balls still offer any significant gains in the area of clearance? My biggest need for the upper arms is to avoid tire contact at full droop due to 315's and lots of backspacing. I was hoping to avoid spacers. I know that the ball-joint arms give more space at the top than the factory arms do, however i wasn't sure if the size of the uni-ball reduced the extra clearance gained with ball-joint arms.

dragr1

iTrader: (3)

Sonoran steel couldn't align b/c he had an early set designed for Tacoma's and they were longer, once he got the 4Runner spec arms, all was fine. I have the Inland Trucks arms with no problems. They do give more clearance for the tire, for 12.50 tires they may work, it would be close with a 4.5" backspacing, with a 4" backspacing you will be good to go with the arms. If you get these you will have to argue with the guy at the alignment shop about how to align with them by pushing the arms all the way out. Print the page off Schaeffers site and you'll see what I mean.

socal98runner

My life? I seriously doubt a pair of $300 a-arms are going to kill me. I don't JUMP my truck, etc..

Hell for that matter, you might as well include ALL aftermarket parts under the "do you value your life" statement. Because we all know, adding parts NOT designed by the manufacturer is taking a "calculated risk".

If you want to "EDUCATE ME", don't start by "INSULTING" me.

I checked the welds on the units they have there, looks good to me. (BTW, did I mention I have mechanical skills? )

Now, IT, does not have exposed ball joints from what I saw of the units. They use the factory ball joint, but they change the angle at which the ball joint sits.

Again, just from what I saw of the units they had in their shop.

This shows me your level of haughtiness. So if it dosn't use a uni-ball, it's worthless.....I guess the mechanical engineers at Toyota ought to be canned.....

This is your arguement? That's pretty sad....

Thanks for taking the time to write your little speach up. Now more than ever, I'm sure I won't be using a uni-ball front upper control arm. You have made 0 progress in showing me why or how a uniball is better than a sealed ball joint.

$800 for TC with uniball.

$300 for IT, $41.60/ea for new ball joints, $30 to press in the new ball joints.

Total cost - $413.20

Hmm, saving $386.80 over the TC w/uniball

Wow, that almost pays my INS deductable if I have a "Accident" !!!!

Yea, so again, why don't I want to go with a IT style upper arm????

justinh

The quote below is directly from sonoran steel's web-site....

"If you want to run 315/75/16 tires on your truck, the tires are too wide with 4.5" backspaced rims. Here are your options, 3.5" back spaced rims which will stick out silly far, Southern California high speed arms (forget about ever getting the thing aligned again) or the shaved stock arms which provide you all the clearance and strength as well as all the factory adjustability. Your alignment guy can actually adjust the back cams out, the front cams in and still have enough adjustment to hit the caster and camber. This greatly reduces frame rubbing. Something the high speed arms can not do, since they run fully maxed out. Also you will retain the sealed factory ball joint and pressed in a-arm bushings. No squeaking or coming loose."

granted this is from his advertisement where he is pimping his modified uppers...if the uni-ball uppers will still give more clearance by the tire i will go that way since i need new upper ball joints anyway...

justinh

or you can get uni-ball uppers from All-Pro for $389....

or you can get factory ball-joints for $25 from trdparts4u

socal98runner

JustinH- Just checked all-pro. Indeed I can!

However, I still want to protect the uni-ball uppers from sand damage, I also want to know if the uniballs are replaceable, how much they cost, and how long they'll last with normal use. Also, will it make the truck more noisy with the uniballs over the factory BJ?

From what I've heard from a LOT of people that off road, the factory BJ is almost perfect, except for the angle of the BJ after lifting the truck.

The ball joint prices I got were from the local stealership, I guessed I could get them online for less, but didn't know where.

Thanks!

SEAN_at_TLT

Socal,

I think you missed the entire point of my post, IT/ATS parts are much more likely to KILL you than most other REPUTABLE aftermarket parts. Their "quality control" is sub-standard and due to their manufacturing specs my truck nearly fell apart on the freeway. I was not JUMPING, I was driving to work and I had not been jumping EVER! 2+ years and 30+ thousand miles later my TC uni-ball arms are still on my truck, I have not had to retighten the hardware, they have not fallen of on the freeway, and they have been wheeled and taken to the desert multiple times. The uni-balls are still in excellent condition, they make no noise and show no signs of wear. They are however replaceable should they ever wear out. 1" uni-balls can be bought from Kartek or Off-road Warehouse, not sure of the price but I think they're about ~$100ea.

I am not slamming you personally, but when you come on a public forum talking about a bunch of stuff you don't know about, you leave the door open to get told otherwise. I am just trying to warn you that their products are much lower quality and much more inconsistent than most of the competition PERIOD.

I also mentioned that All-Pro and Camburg offer similar uni-ball arms as TC but for less money. But apparently you missed that.

Yes, repositioned ball-joints can benefit you but only in geometry, not in strength. Uni-balls can do both. If you are bothering to upgrade from stock why not really take advantage and maximize the benefits?

If you are interested in learning more about uni-ball arms read this article I wrote for Off-road.Com: http://www.off-road.com/toyota/proje..._over_compare/

Or this article specifically about the TC arms: http://www.off-road.com/toyota/projects/tacoma/uca.html

My point is just that you get what you pay for, and if you are comfortable risking your life to save a few bucks go for it, but I'm not...

socal98runner

I saw that, but I have yet to be told/show the benefits of ball joints...

And what's the deal with this?

How come the arms are not TIG welded instead of MIG welding?

I called TC, the arms are $800 for the pair, this I am sure of.


Oh, and Sean, next time you want to teach someone something, it's a good idea not to flame them first. You have your opinion about IT and other people have theirs. You'll attract more bears with honey..... if you get my drift.

SEAN_at_TLT

Do you mean the benefit of uni-balls? (you typed ball-joints) If so the benefits are much improved strength/durability (especially in adverse conditions such as the desert) and for me one of the best things is the simplicity of removal for replacing CV's, etc. I hate trying to get BJ's apart w/o messing them up where a uni-ball can just be unbolted as often as needed simply.

There is no need to TIG weld them, although it might look nicer, in this application there is no benefit.

As far as flaming, I put a smiley after the original comments to attempt to indicate inflection which is often lost on the internet. You have to understand that your post sort of bashed the TC arms and wrote them off as "over priced" and "ineffective" but the "facts" that you presented to back that up weren't true. I was educating with a firm hand I guess. It can be frustrating to try to keep up with all the "newbs".

deathrunner

I run uni-balls on my uppers. If you take the time to look at the differences, you would be a fool to choose the BJ over the UB. Uni-balls, are STRONGER, Can be Rebuilt easily, and they cycle more travel. Downey makes a "mega-tarvel" ball joint, which is a slight improvement, but still nothing like a uniball. Check out Seans website and I think you'll see that he knows a little bit more than the average retard. He's been involved in building some pretty cool yotas.

Sometimes spending that extra cash makes a really big difference, I think this is all that Sean was pointing out.

Good talk, see ya out there

socal98runner

See, now this is progress.

Easier to work with, stronger than factory BJ.

Now why did it take you the whole tread to convey this message.....


BTW, I never said they were "ineffective", in fact if you read what I posted I said

......not that they don't make quality stuff, because I've seen the arms up close and the workmanship is AWESOME!!!

Where in anything that I posted did I say their product was ineffective?

Slam me all you want, call me a noob, whatever...

The point is you made an arguement without stating any facts yourself.

Next time, if there is one, list the PRO's and CON's before trying to educate us "noobs". You might find I'm not such a noob after all.

deathrunner

Actually, he called you a "newb". Entirely different meaning.

socal98runner

Sorry to dig this up again, but I've been doing some investigation on this matter.

Is anyone running the All-Pro upper arms? They are Tig welded and use a teflon uniball all for under $400