Wolf Island Diver
Well-Known Member
Then don’t check them. Bigger tires place more stress on all of these mounts. Mine were torqued beyond spec and rechecked. They’re marked and I visually inspect them every couple of weeks. I recheck the torque of every suspension and steering bolt every time I wheel and every 3-4 months. I even remove the brake calipers and visually inspect them if I’ve driven through mud. All the bolts have remained dead on.Are you implying the bolt holes will be wallowed out? If so, the cause of that is not big tires. The cause is loose bolts that were not addressed in a timely manner.
When I went to put on new 3” springs, I loosed all of the control arms. You MUST do this if changing spring rate/ride height. One of my LCA mounts has started showing some minor wear. It’s not terrible. But this doesn’t surprise me at all as the bolt isn’t an interference fit, the bracketry is relatively thin, and there’s a lot more load on the system. This wear could have even happened prior to the lift, considering that my body mounts were loose. The factory has lots of issues with torquing things. Another reason people should check their stuff.
I couldn’t keep the track bar tight on my TJ. I could snap hardended bolts with a torque gun. Nothing was ever tight enough. I tig welded on thicker mounting plates at the axle side to fix it.
This is the nature of lifted trucks especially if used off road. There’s a massive increase in load on all components. Folks should be checking the torque of their control arm bolts regularly and pull the bolts at least once a year to check for wear depending on use. Also people should just expect that the wear factor, margin of safety and MTTF of these components has been altered by the cumulative effects of mods and harder usage. The control arm mounts, bolts and associated torque specs were never designed for 37 inch tires let alone 40s. It makes me curious if the specs are different on the Recon package with factory 37s. My diesel has frame gussets, cast iron knuckles, etc., just for the additional weight of that engine.
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