newbie question about UCAs

This is my first post in . I have a 89 cherokee 5 speed and have a 6 inch lift sitting in the back. I read somewhere that with 6 inches of lift you can run without upper control arms. Is this true and if it is how safe is that? thanks guys.

Boulder_jeeps said:

This is my first post in . I have a 89 cherokee 5 speed and have a 6 inch lift sitting in the back. I read somewhere that with 6 inches of lift you can run without upper control arms. Is this true and if it is how safe is that? thanks guys.

Click to expand...

I have no idea where you read that, but never believe anything you read from them again. That is a very unsafe idea. DO NOT do it. UCAs are there for a reason.

thanks thats what I figured.

did you mean without NEW uca's or just without them completely. you can probably get away without new ones, even though you might be sitting pretty far back in the well. but without them alltogether like stated above, very unsafe

rocklandxjer said:

did you mean without NEW uca's or just without them completely. you can probably get away without new ones, even though you might be sitting pretty far back in the well. but without them alltogether like stated above, very unsafe

Click to expand...

upper control arms don't locate the axle in the wheelwell (LCAs do). they set the caster and pinion angle.



...and yes, you need them

At 6" i would say get the new uca's. Your pinion angle would be horrible with longer LCA's and stock length UCA's. Plus if rough country provides UCA's with there 6.5" kit then you know you need them because they only give you the absolute minimum and sometimes not even that.

That's not true, UCA's do help to center the axle in the wheel well (if they are adjustable). They also can be used to adjust caster....it depends on how you look at it. You can either lengthen the AUCA's and shortent the lowers or vice versa. I have to get AUCA's now since I added ACOS up front and have maxed out my fixed uppers and my tires are closer to the rear of the front wheel well. The only thing that will allow me to re-center my tires is to use AUCA's and lengthen them along with my lowers to essentially "push" my axle more toward my front bumper.

Boulder_jeeps said:

This is my first post in . I have a 89 cherokee 5 speed and have a 6 inch lift sitting in the back. I read somewhere that with 6 inches of lift you can run without upper control arms. Is this true and if it is how safe is that? thanks guys.

Click to expand...

I wonder if what you read about no UCA's was referring to a long arm supsension? With a long arm, your lower control arms have a short link that connects to the upper mounts on the axle; so separate upper control arms are not used.
A lot of people on this board run long arm setups like that; and they are safe (if built correctly of course).

You can NOT just get rid of your upper control arms and keep the stock lowers though.

zthang43 said:

I wonder if what you read about no UCA's was referring to a long arm supsension? With a long arm, your lower control arms have a short link that connects to the upper mounts on the axle; so separate upper control arms are not used.
A lot of people on this board run long arm setups like that; and they are safe (if built correctly of course).

You can NOT just get rid of your upper control arms and keep the stock lowers though.

Click to expand...

That is not true for all long arms. What you are reffering to is radius arms. Just because the UCAs are attached and not seperate does not mean they are not still there.