I am having my UCA's installed today...Yes, I know, I'm a puss...but the shop just called me saying they are having an issue....Said the ball joints provided by Calmini don't fit flush through the hole top down on the UCA's....the guy said he didnt want to squash them down to fit flush as it would distort or tear the rubber part of the ball joint and didnt want to grind out the hole on the UCA as he didnt think this should be required!!! Calmini isn't open yet this AM so I am looking for solutions...or answers...is it possible Calmini sent me the wrong ball joints?? Help!!!

I don't have my truck here today... but I think the ball joints bolt onto the UCA from the bottom and not through??? Wait a bit and someone with their truck or someone that remembers better than me will post.

These are replacement upper ball joints for use with CALMINI Upper Control Arms. Complete kit comes with an individual ball joint(1), spindle mount nut, bolts and lock washers for an easy install. Part mounts on the bottom side of our Upper Control Arm using the supplied hardware.



VEHICLE PART NUMBER PRICE
2000-2004 Xterra NPFA1227 $25.00

All taken care of....

Thank you all!! Seems problem SHOULD be solved...

Further question on this issue...
OK...the guy at the shop says he sees how it all works...his question is how safe the setup is....he says that by doing it this way the only thing attaching the UCA to the ball joint and wheel is the 4 bolts that screw in through the top of the UCA...his thought was that this isn't really strong enough to hold during hard wheeling whereas if the ball joint went THROUGH the hole if one or more of the bolts broke the wheel may flop around a bit but would still be attached as opposed to falling off completely if mounted to the bottom of the UCA...What is he missing??

I think he has it backwards but an engineer will chime in. The UCA should have more upward force than downward. Therefore the balljoint is pushing up on the arm and the bolts just hold it in place. If it went through as he thought than the upward force would just be held by the bolts.

Many have wheeled pretty hard with these and I have never heard of a problem beyond trashing the boot which happens off road.

I'd trust Calmini's years of offroad engineering experience over some guy at a shop who's never seen a Nissan before.

I mean - not that we should just blindly trust them - but a lot of people are running this system and I've heard no complaints.

Oooh - Roger has a good point, too.... I wasn't thinking about that.

I hear ya...he has limited Nissan experience but has done lots of work on Jeeps and such...though now he does mostly speed work on Mustangs...pretty sure he is just being overly cautious...the way he makes it sound is that he is just worried about being sued if anything should happen with me and the system after he installs it...

The guy couldn't figure out how to install a ball joint...so I would take his engineering opinions with a grain of salt.

Sorry the pics are dirtier than hell but hey I drive dirt roads all the time.

From Above


From Above Again


From Below


And I beat the shit out of the system, Dirt Roads, Wheeling, Cattle Gaurds at 65mph, and most recently Hidden Canyon 12" drop at 40 mph.

The down force is from the LCA, where the torsion bars are attached. The UCA really, for the most part, only recieves upward forces while hitting bumps.