Total Chaos front Lower Control Arm skids - Pirate4x4.Com : 4x4 and Off-Road Forum

mirfjc · 12-24-2007, 05:07 PM

I went and got some lower control arm skids put on at Total Chaos on Saturday. The front LCA's (along with the stock UCA and tie rods) are the only things I've broken on my truck so far (broken to point of not working, anyway). So I've been looking to protect and beef these up for quite a long time.

The Total Chaos plates are listed at the top of the web page linked to this text.

The skids are bolt-on, but could also be welded. An early version of the skids had big bolt heads that looked like a sure thing to damage. These have now been changed out for low profile dome head bolts. I'm testing the bolting, but will probably weld these suckers on eventually.

We had two issues during installation that are going to get folded into retail versions of the skids:
1. The nut on the wheel-ward side of the plate would interfere with the CV boot on full droop --- this has been solved by using a 1/2 size nylock and precisely cut bolt lengths.
2. The second is only for those people running jounces or chubbies ("running with a chubbie" doesn't mean what it sounds like, btw) - the plate would interfere with the mounting bolt on the receiver dome. Total Chaos are now looking into putting an access port into the plate for the jounce mount bolt. (The solution that MAF came up with for this woefully exposed bolt is to cut an access port into the bottom of the LCA and recess the bolt inside of the LCA -- I would have torn that bolt off on my first trip out).

Anyway, here are the plates mounted on my truck. I'm going to take the truck out to Death / Panamint Valley(s) over 26-29 Dec period and will try to beat the cr*p out of them. I'll post up how well they behave:

sbechtold · 12-24-2007, 09:22 PM

Nice Mark! I'm sure they will get the appropriate level of abuse on your FJC.

mirfjc · 12-24-2007, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbechtold

Nice Mark! I'm sure they will get the appropriate level of abuse on your FJC.

Yeah, I'm going to be aiming for those suckers

mirfjc · 01-13-2008, 06:01 PM

Just wanted to give feedback after a bunch of runs. Ended up doing two good days in Death Valley on rocky stuff, and a few more runs since. The skids held up great. I tried to steer over obstacles to scrape the bolt heads off, but they survived just fine.

We had my truck back up on the lift and at full droop the outboard but just clears the CV boot. At all other CV angles, the nut is increasingly away from the boot. After many, many trails miles, I felt around the boot and couldn't find even a hint of rub. So I think we're good there too. I think I'm still gonna weld mine on, FWIW.

These suckers can get gotten from Total Chaos' various distributors.

12-24-2007, 05:07 PM	#1 (permalink)
mirfjc Registered User Join Date: May 2007 Member # 90919 Posts: 7	Total Chaos front Lower Control Arm skids I went and got some lower control arm skids put on at Total Chaos on Saturday. The front LCA's (along with the stock UCA and tie rods) are the only things I've broken on my truck so far (broken to point of not working, anyway). So I've been looking to protect and beef these up for quite a long time. The Total Chaos plates are listed at the top of the web page linked to this text. The skids are bolt-on, but could also be welded. An early version of the skids had big bolt heads that looked like a sure thing to damage. These have now been changed out for low profile dome head bolts. I'm testing the bolting, but will probably weld these suckers on eventually. We had two issues during installation that are going to get folded into retail versions of the skids: 1. The nut on the wheel-ward side of the plate would interfere with the CV boot on full droop --- this has been solved by using a 1/2 size nylock and precisely cut bolt lengths. 2. The second is only for those people running jounces or chubbies ("running with a chubbie" doesn't mean what it sounds like, btw) - the plate would interfere with the mounting bolt on the receiver dome. Total Chaos are now looking into putting an access port into the plate for the jounce mount bolt. (The solution that MAF came up with for this woefully exposed bolt is to cut an access port into the bottom of the LCA and recess the bolt inside of the LCA -- I would have torn that bolt off on my first trip out). Anyway, here are the plates mounted on my truck. I'm going to take the truck out to Death / Panamint Valley(s) over 26-29 Dec period and will try to beat the cr*p out of them. I'll post up how well they behave:

01-13-2008, 06:01 PM	#4 (permalink)
mirfjc Registered User Join Date: May 2007 Member # 90919 Posts: 7	tested Just wanted to give feedback after a bunch of runs. Ended up doing two good days in Death Valley on rocky stuff, and a few more runs since. The skids held up great. I tried to steer over obstacles to scrape the bolt heads off, but they survived just fine. We had my truck back up on the lift and at full droop the outboard but just clears the CV boot. At all other CV angles, the nut is increasingly away from the boot. After many, many trails miles, I felt around the boot and couldn't find even a hint of rub. So I think we're good there too. I think I'm still gonna weld mine on, FWIW. These suckers can get gotten from Total Chaos' various distributors.

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12-24-2007, 09:22 PM	#2 (permalink)
sbechtold Registered User Join Date: Dec 2006 Member # 84124 Location: California Posts: 151	Nice Mark! I'm sure they will get the appropriate level of abuse on your FJC.