Control arm options

[Sunnysideup]

I'm thinking this winter to update all 8 control arms.
Any good or bad experiences with any brand you would like to share?

I have looked at Metal Cloak, things with Johnny joints, Clayton girro joints....

On my jk I had a lot of maintance and replaceing joint ends on the control arms. I had settled into a johnny joint before selling it and they were holding up well.

I have some damage on two control arms now, 42,000 miles... and I am thinking this winter I'll change them out. Hopefully just once. So let me know what you have and how its been holding up!

My truck is a daily, but it does trails up to about a 6-7 rating at times.
It sees about 2500 miles of gravel, dirt, on rock trails a year.
When overlanding it has about 650 extra lbs on the back between tent, topper, food, supplies, tools... etc...

My wife is blind and hates noises...lol.

Sponsored

 

[Escape.idiocracy]

Core4x4 tier 4 ???

I am a fan of Johnny joints as well. Though a lot of folks do not like them on the road due to the increased road noise/vibration transmission.

if you want to get real fancy artech aluminum control arms are cool too…..

 

[mx5red]

I'm thinking this winter to update all 8 control arms.
Any good or bad experiences with any brand you would like to share?

I have looked at Metal Cloak, things with Johnny joints, Clayton girro joints....

On my jk I had a lot of maintance and replaceing joint ends on the control arms. I had settled into a johnny joint before selling it and they were holding up well.

I have some damage on two control arms now, 42,000 miles... and I am thinking this winter I'll change them out. Hopefully just once. So let me know what you have and how its been holding up!

My truck is a daily, but it does trails up to about a 6-7 rating at times.
It sees about 2500 miles of gravel, dirt, on rock trails a year.
When overlanding it has about 650 extra lbs on the back between tent, topper, food, supplies, tools... etc...

My wife is blind and hates noises...lol.

On your JK what brand arms were you replacing joints on? Stock?
I’ve tried looking up the same answer, what type of end lasts the longest?
Metalcloak/Giiro type ends last a long time?
Will Johnny joints last longer but squeak? Not squeak if they are greased?
I’d grease JJ ends if they last a long time. If they don’t last any longer than MC joints then I’d just buy and replace the quiet MC joints at same intervals…

 

[LostWoods]

Metalcloak has been outstanding for me. Articulation is bonkers and they're completely silent on road.

 

[Sunnysideup]

On your JK what brand arms were you replacing joints on? Stock?
I’ve tried looking up the same answer, what type of end lasts the longest?
Metalcloak/Giiro type ends last a long time?
Will Johnny joints last longer but squeak? Not squeak if they are greased?
I’d grease JJ ends if they last a long time. If they don’t last any longer than MC joints then I’d just buy and replace the quiet MC joints at same intervals…

It was the old krawler joints.... they needed lots of grease, I didn't rebuild them, I replaced them once with whole new joints because they seemed to be in bad shape. but in about a year they were loose again... They were greased 4 times a year or so... but when removing them and checking on them they would just spin in the joint loosely - then when grease is the only thing keeping them intact they would need greased after every trip and were failing again. I swapped to Johnny joints and they were holding up when I sold the jk. There are about 6 new joint types out there now. The new trend is to have a rubber teflon combo joint- that are low maintance, quiet, vibration free, noise free...

 

[bleda2002]

Unless you absolutely need crazy flex look in to metalcloak style arms. Because they rotate within the arm they last for years with no regreasing needed and provide an oem style ride but with high misalignment.

The 2 best in this category imo are metalcloak and rock krawler adventure series because of the ease of rebuild down the road. Rock krawler actually compared all the dual durometer joints very objectively

 

[JTDay]

Synergy's set is pretty nice.

 

[Escape.idiocracy]

Synergy's set is pretty nice.

Have they updated their joints since 2019?? I love synergies stuff but was pretty irritated with their track bar joints…. Blew out in 9 months, reached out to them and their response was that it’s a consumable and sometimes things wear quick off road…..

While I understand their take it was pretty quick. Swapped out to FK rod ends and haven’t changed out.

 

[JTDay]

@Escape.idiocracy Sorry to hear about your issues. I can't be sure about the bushings though. They use these which are similar to some of the other designs.

https://www.synergymfg.com/synergy-dual-durometer-bushing-ddb-series.html

 

[mx5red]

I believe the synergy joints have noticeably less flex than MC or RK joints.
@Headbarcode on wrangler site gained a lot of flex by going from synergy to MC arms… if that matters to you.

 

[Escape.idiocracy]

@Escape.idiocracy Sorry to hear about your issues. I can't be sure about the bushings though. They use these which are similar to some of the other designs.

https://www.synergymfg.com/synergy-dual-durometer-bushing-ddb-series.html

Definitely a change- it used to be similar to a Johnny joint.
???

 

[Sduncan]

For ease of maintenance.. Metal Cloak all day. Next I’d go with Rock Krawler. Very stout and quality joints and bushings.

 

[Boostnu]

I only have experience with metalcloak and Johnny joints. Both in my opinion are really good. I’m currently running metalcloak on the gladiator and have been happy with them.

 

[Jeffjk]

+1 for Metalcloak. I’m at about 30K miles on their Game Changer kit with no issues

 

[DailyMoparGuy]

My MC front control arms have been great. Same for their track bars.

Sponsored