UCA MOUNTS TWEAKED ??

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mopar505

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swapping out my factory upper arms for a set of tubular. old ones came out fine. new ones no way no how gonna fit up in there? are these new arms not in spec or is the existing mounts bent?? i cant tell on the arms or the mounts as they both look ok to me? POL is the manufacture of the tubular UCA's. i have ordered a set of QA1 UCA'S to compare and they will be in next week.

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There is some flex in the UCA mounting arrangement, and it's fairly common for the mounts to get squeezed in or flexed out when installing/removing the UCA's or tightening down the bolts.

That said, it looks to me like those UCA's are too narrow to be useable.
 
There is some flex in the UCA mounting arrangement, and it's fairly common for the mounts to get squeezed in or flexed out when installing/removing the UCA's or tightening down the bolts.

That said, it looks to me like those UCA's are too narrow to be useable.

I am thinking that way too. Its dam near 3/16" to 1/4" off. The drivers side is off as well but slightly less ?
 
The frame rail top where those brackets are welded is notorious for rust out. Has it been repaired at some point?
Do both sides have the same issue?
 
I am thinking that way too. Its dam near 3/16" to 1/4" off. The drivers side is off as well but slightly less ?

Like I said, it's not unusual for the mounts to be a little off, they can be spread apart and squeezed together because there is some flex there. Usually though it's the outer tabs that have the most flex, not the inners that are attached to the shock mount. And that's what would have to move on yours.

Have to measured the width of the arms? Are they both even the same width? I don't know where those UCA's are made, and manufacturing defects do happen.
 
I had the same issue with my CPP uppers, with some fin-ageling i got them in there and like you I was worried something wasn't right. I found a lot of grease and a rubber mallet did the trick. Having said that I haven't driven the car yet so the jury is out on whether or not its going to be align-able.
 
The frame rail top where those brackets are welded is notorious for rust out. Has it been repaired at some point?
Do both sides have the same issue?

yes, both sides have the same issue... dont look like any rust repairs were made.
 
Looks like a quality control issue with the new arms. Last thing you want is for the upper arm to be bound up.
 
Like I said, it's not unusual for the mounts to be a little off, they can be spread apart and squeezed together because there is some flex there. Usually though it's the outer tabs that have the most flex, not the inners that are attached to the shock mount. And that's what would have to move on yours.

Have to measured the width of the arms? Are they both even the same width? I don't know where those UCA's are made, and manufacturing defects do happen.

i pulled the metal bushing caps off the old arms and cant find them. so measuring them would be inaccurate. I was skeptic of the lower priced POL arms and asked them where made? I was told a small shop in California manufactured them for POL ?? They look exactly like the arms that PST sells which i was told a small co. in the mid west manufactures for PST ? Hell IDK. guess we will see if the QA1 arms fit up in there. For what its worth, there is no greasing these up and knocking them in. If it was remotely close i would give it a shot.
 
i pulled the metal bushing caps off the old arms and cant find them. so measuring them would be inaccurate. I was skeptic of the lower priced POL arms and asked them where made? I was told a small shop in California manufactured them for POL ?? They look exactly like the arms that PST sells which i was told a small co. in the mid west manufactures for PST ? Hell IDK. guess we will see if the QA1 arms fit up in there. For what its worth, there is no greasing these up and knocking them in. If it was remotely close i would give it a shot.


I meant measure the UCA's to determine if they're even the same side to side, IE, does the driver's side POL UCA even have the same width as the passenger side POL UCA? And the little metal caps would only throw off your measurement of the original arms by an 1/8" at most, you can just assume that they'd be a little narrower than what you get without them.

There are a lot of "shops" in California that are the import base for Chinese made parts. Not saying that's definitely the case here. But if you look at companies like Champion Radiators and others that manufacture overseas and then import, they're usually headquartered in Southern California because the Port of Los Angeles is a major international shipping hub. Just saying.

Regardless of where they're made, manufacturing defects happen.
 
I meant measure the UCA's to determine if they're even the same side to side, IE, does the driver's side POL UCA even have the same width as the passenger side POL UCA?

i'll check and see
 
Those uca look just like the cpp brand i installed on a 66 valiant..it didn't take muck work with a brass hammer to move the uca mounts on the car..a little bumping one way or the other (each side was different) I put about 3000 miles on the car before I sold it..no problems whatsoever and as for as I know none for the new owner.
 
Those uca look just like the cpp brand i installed on a 66 valiant..it didn't take muck work with a brass hammer to move the uca mounts on the car..a little bumping one way or the other (each side was different) I put about 3000 miles on the car before I sold it..no problems whatsoever and as for as I know none for the new owner.

who makes CPP brand ?? Cap?. As 72blunblu said, its the inner mounts that need moved a good bit. those things are stout and are not going to flex/move much unlike the outer ones. Im gonna wait and see how the QA1 units fit up before i go whacking on these mounts.
 
Not sure who made the cpp brand...seemed to be of good quality though..just relating my experience..not as big a deal as I first thought.fairly easy install after i figured it out.. good luck
 
who makes CPP brand ?? Cap?. As 72blunblu said, its the inner mounts that need moved a good bit. those things are stout and are not going to flex/move much unlike the outer ones. Im gonna wait and see how the QA1 units fit up before i go whacking on these mounts.

CPP is not CAP. CAP was a Canadian company that did their own manufacturing and was bought out by QA1 years ago. CAP had some very nice designs but were known for crappy welding and more than a few failed welds/parts. QA1 bought the company for their designs and then greatly improved the manufacturing, the QA1 Mopar suspension parts are great.

CPP is another company that seems to be a distributor rather than a manufacturer, not sure where their stuff is actually made. Although the CPP stuff looks very similar to the POL parts. POL is out of Corona, California and they apparently do some manufacturing there. But it appears that they serve primarily as a distributor, and it doesn’t look like they’re making the UCA’s themselves. The fact that it doesn’t specifically say that the UCA’s are US made kind of implies that they aren’t. If they were they’d say it, and I doubt they’d be one of the lowest priced UCA’s you can get.

Those uca look just like the cpp brand i installed on a 66 valiant..it didn't take muck work with a brass hammer to move the uca mounts on the car..a little bumping one way or the other (each side was different) I put about 3000 miles on the car before I sold it..no problems whatsoever and as for as I know none for the new owner.

If you had to move the mounts that far there’s a real good chance the UCA’s weren’t right. Or the UCA mounts were damaged. While the UCA mounts do flex some and do need to be trued up occasionally you shouldn’t need a brass hammer to do it. 3k miles isn’t really much at all, the stock parts regularly went 30x further so 3k miles isn’t really saying much. The CAP tubular LCA’s on my Challenger went a good 50k miles before the welds on one of them broke, it was still a crap part.
 
Let me go a little further on my experience, I guess I should have the first post..at the time a buddy of mine had a set of the cpp uca he had bought knew but never installed..l liked the looks of them so when I ran across a nib,never been opened set at a swap meet I bought them..when I started to install them I ran into the same problem as mopar505..at the time I had 2 66 valiant and a 66 dart..tbe uca wouldn't fit any of the 3..i took them to my buddy's to compare to his..they were exactly alike..neither set would fit his 70 duster or the 2 duster body's he had out back so off we went to another buddy place that had a couple 68-69 darts..wouldnt fit there either..so we came to the conclusion it wasn't the ucas that were off but mopars quality control..after a few days I decided to give it another try ..after some measuring and checking I decided to try to move the mounts some..my one ucas was off about 1/4 to 3/8..one side a little more than the other.. so I figured out if the one that was 1/4 off to make it work all I had to do was to get each of the 4 mounts to move 1/16 of an inch..went right in..the other side was off a little more..i had to move one almost a whole 1/8 of an inch..a little 1lb brass shop hammer I had and a few little bumps and it went right in..no heavy banging or beating on it..there is a small brace tab you have to cut off to get the full range of travel and a different bump stop is needed...i know 3000 miles is not a lot but that little stroker sure bounced Those tires off the ground a bunch of times during that 3000 miles and still is..lol
 
Even rebuilding stock arms I've always have to tap(pound really) the control arm mounts open to get the upper arms back in.Not one of Mopars best designs but works.
 
well i have determined that it is the passenger side UCA from POL that is wacked and not anything on the duster. I'll be talking with them tomorrow about a refund. It is out at least 1/4" and i'm not going to try and make it fit. As suggested i laid them on top of one another and it was clear to see the mis alignment.
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The cpp i had was actually heavier built on that center webbing between the two tubes..solid pc with solid weld down each side.
 
I know this is an ancient thread but I had a very similar experience with CPP UCAs. I tried and tried to get them to go in and finally did but they were so right I couldn’t get the bolts installed. Something did not look right and because it took A LOT of coercing to even get them that far I was not convinced they were right. I had a buddy make up some plates to weld across the entire section of the UCA mounts and thought maybe they were so far out of spec we may have welded them way out.

Ordered a set of QA1s and they literally went it with a small piece of wood and screwdriver. They look great and seem to operate with a full range of motion that the CPPs did not have.

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