JK UCA Bushings

[DirtyComanche]

Has anyone tried using JK UCA bushings in order to go to a larger bolt?  Allegedly the OD of the bushings are the same as XJ/MJ ones, but they use as 12mm bolt rather than a 10mm.  It would seem it should be easy enough to open the hole up a tiny little bit in order to then run a 1/2" bolt if one wished.

[HOrnbrod]

Why? XJ/MJ UCA bolt failure isn't a problem that I'm aware of. And you would still have the flimsy U-channel XJ/MJ UCA with a smaller rubber mass bushing. I'd rather convert to the tubular WJ UCA's or box-in the XL/MJ UCA's.

[DirtyComanche]

This is for the bushing at the axle end, which is not changed out when going to aftermarket or WJ arms.

 

The plan is to build the UCAs using junk I have lying around, so the frame end would be drilled out to a 1/2" bolt at least anyways as I don't have any poly bushings or similar that use smaller bolts.

 

Bolt failures occur right after you get away from the flimsy U-channel setup, the fact they are so flimsy is why the bolts survive.  No, I don't anticipate having a problem, but the JK bushings are actually cheaper than the XJ ones with my account discount, so if there's a (potentially) better part that's cheaper then why not?

[HOrnbrod]

Si. If they are the same "thickness" then why not?

[A-man930]

Intewesting...

[DirtyComanche]

I grabbed some ACDelco bushings because they're the ones I can get for cheap.  Also they use a relatively round sleeve, so it can be drilled reasonably.  Some of them use ridged/knurled/definitely not a round hole sleeve and apparently short of going at them with a carbide burr in a die grinder you won't get far.

 

Here's the bushing and a bolt size comparison:

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Bottom is a 10mm, the stock MJ/XJ size.  Above it is a 12mm, the JK size.  Above that is 1/2".

 

Just going to the JK sized bolt would be a massive improvement, and I debated doing just that, but the other end of the arms will use a 1/2" bolt so I figured I'd make it the same.

 

Note, those are just bolts that were lying around but the right diameter, not hardware out of a UCA or hardware I would likely use for that.

 

Drilled out the sleeve:

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I just used a tapered spiral reamer in a hand drill with some cutting oil and held the bushing by hand.  The sleeve is hard.  I'm not sure what the best way to do that would be without a reamer, I didn't want to try clamping the bushing in a vice as it might damage it, the idea of using a carbide burr doesn't sound to me like you would get a very round hole.

 

Anyways, that's it for now, I still haven't ordered the few odds I don't have and need to build the UCAs, so not much is going to happen on this until then.

[Crash]

IIRC, IRO or RK make a joint style replacement 'bushing? With a 1/2" hole

[DirtyComanche]

IIRC, IRO or RK make a joint style replacement 'bushing? With a 1/2" hole

 

There's a few of them out there.  I don't need the performance of one (this truck will probably never see the swaybar unhooked) and feel this OEM style bushing will last much longer.

 

I really only drilled the 12mm out to 1/2" so it would take the same hardware as the other end.