Funofchoice

Has anyone heard of ball joint spacers being dangerous on/offroad because they wear away at the control arm's bolt holes (to the spacer) , fool with underside articulation too much or something else I don't know about? The only ones I know about are SDORI's spacers. :bounce2:

Marc P

As long as they are tight I think that would be impossible. The only ones I am aware of are from SDORS.

mt_goat

As long as you use the grade 8 hardware, nylock nuts, and jam nuts that Frank (SDORI) sends, and torque them properly, I doubt you will ever have a problem with them loosening up and wearing the bolt holes. If you are worried about it, just check them every oil change to see if they are getting loose. You could also use some blue locktight on them when you install them for some extra peace of mind.

As far as other possible problems, there is the possiblilty of over extending your cv joints just like people do by cranking the t-bar too far, but if you keep all your bump stops in place this shouldn't be a problem either. The bump stops are there to limit the control arms within a safe range of motion.

The only problems I've heard of so far are tire rubbing with some wheel/tire combos and torn cv boots. I think Frank has on his web site the wheel/tire combo that causes problems, (some to have to use wheel spacers with the BJ spacers). http://www.sdori.com/
The torn cv boots may have been due to a bad cv boot to begin with or bump stop problems.

elripster

The spacer should not contribute to that type of wear. If it were to occur, it would be because the hardware was loose. Loose hardware will cause problems regardless of whether the spacer is installed or not.

As long as you use stock upper bumps, or if you have already purchased low pros shim them with some washers, you are good to go as far as over extensions.

As far as boots are concerned realize that the newest ones out there are nearly a decade old. The average is probably say a '92 and is 12 years old. Rubber gets hard and dry when it ages. Some might tear, many won't, it's dependent on so many factors like climate, 4wd usage, t-bar crank throughout the trucks life.. etc... it's really hard to predict. I don't hear about torn boots much and usually if you don't hear anything, that means things are going pretty well. Typically you hear from people when they have problems.

Frank

934rnr

I guess someone from Downey told him that they would cause damage to your upper control arms. I would like to see some pics if they have them of the damages they claim.
Sounds like they are trying to diss ball joint spacers.

mt_goat

Yeah, anything they don't sell must be bad.

914runner

elripster

That's really silly. The forces are a function of the the truck and its interaction with the terrain regardless of the spacer. In fact, the spacer actually puts the a-arm at a better mechanical advantage to resist the moments or torque (looking at the lower b-joint as the pivot) from pushing the tires side to side when turnging or front/back when braking?accelerating.

What they need to realize is that the b-joints have it easy unless you bottom out the suspension. In that case it is the LOWER joint that bears the load, the upper just feels the force of the spring.

Frank

Funofchoice

Yah, the guy I had talked to at Downey seemed a little off compared to the others..., but seemed informative. He had said that he would "never sell ball joint spacers ever!" He had talked about selling a similar product back in the 70's or 80's...i dunno....but anyway, he had said that he was getting calls about failed bj spacers (even on the highway, but I don't know why the highway....). Because of the failure of that product they had to buy every one of them back and lost a lot of $ in the log run. I didn't know whether or not to believe him, but it got me wondering, but since everyone I've heard of that has bj spacers installed and not has a single problem with them I'm pretty confident in them.

Thanks Frank for all the replies with e-mails on the spacers. Great service