Howdy, y'all! This is one of the first of many threads I plan on making on here and can't wait to absorb even more useful information for everyone. My '06 4x4 Sport is my first truck and I want to baby it and transform it into an off-road/overlanding beast. I recently found out my bushings are pretty worn out so I figured that I'll go ahead and replace the control arms while I'm at it.

A few months ago I threw on some MOOG K80771 ball joints and have read everything they make is solid so I was l looking at throwing on their problem solver complete arms. Wish I knew my bushings were shot before I did that, but oh well. Is there anything better than those that I should be looking at? I'm planning on doing the coilover conversion within the next several months with either a 4" Superlift or 5" RC suspension kit and don't know whether to hold off for that project or not.

As far as uppers go, I should be in good shape, but since my I broke over 100k recentely and plan on doing a lot of off-roading, I'm looking at what would be best for those too, as I want to make my truck as off-road capable as possible while still being realistic. I don't plan on doing desert racing or super serious rock crawling that would require a SAS, but want to get my baby on the trails as much as possible.

 

 

Oh yeah, totally forgot about the Energy bushings. Definitely need to grab some of those. I was just thinking from a time/labor/frustration standpoint, it would be easier to just throw on new arms instead. I guess I can live without them, but would rather that piece of mind knowing I don't have to swap 'em out anytime soon. But, I can't afford to do the full suspension overhaul right now. I just know it's going to be a pain in the *** just to put on the new bushings.

 

I did new bushings once, and never again will I do that, at least with stock replacements and a ball joint press lol. Buying the whole control arm is so much easier.

I would bet that the majority of stock Rangers are running around with bad lower control arm bushings. If there's no play in the control arm where it bolts to the frame, I would wait until you do the Superlift, assuming that's not more than a few months out. The longer you let them go, the more of a risk you take.

 

 

If the situation were to arise, I probably will use poly bushings next time. I wasn't a fan of the replacement bushings and I'm not 100% sure but I think they're already cracking again, just two years later.

 

Hahaha, kill it with fire! Yeah removing the OEM bushings like a giant headache, and since I don't have access to a garage...I'd be taking it to a shop. The sound is pretty depressing, so I need to figure out what I'm gonna do soon rather than later.

 

So I found these Uniball UCAs from
BTT, but doesn't seem like anyone makes uniball LCAs that I'm able to run. If I use MOOG LCAs with these Uniballs, will I run into any issues? Thinking I should just stick to MOOG everything. It's not like I'm doing serious wheeling every weekend. Plus, it seems I would have to wait until the suspension overall anyways if I go with the BTTs since they're longer.

 

 

I'm in an apartment complex, but my neighbors have probably done sketchier **** then busting out torches in the driveway lol.