That would be the first thing I would look at.Are your control arm bolts tight enough? The noise on acceleration and stopping may be a loose control arm sliding back and forth some.
So if the joint moving around is acceptable, then why have the jam nut?
Fair enough, but why is the jam nut there at all then? I can't imagine any manufacturer is dying to increase material costs an additional $1-2 per arm to include a nut that has no purpose. So why are they doing so?The joint is moving on the misalignment ball, not the threads in the arm.
Sorry if I'm slow, but doesn't that lead us back where we started? That would imply that the weld nut is there to keep the arm from turning, which in turn means, centered or not, the nut is important to the longevity of the arm, and therefore we should all make sure they are tight, and that the arm is NOT turning under load.ask teraflex, I think they had some experience in this area 15+ years ago.
seriously though, they tried it, it didn't work that well and the threads wore out in a hurry. My TJ had them when I bought it, they'd been welded solid because the threads were trashed.
You don't want the arm rotating on the joint threads, that will lead to a failure eventually (the arm will unscrew itself and fall out, leaving you with two joints bolted to the axle/frame without any other connection). The jam nuts mitigate (eliminate, if done correctly) the arm from rotating itself. Instead, the joins can misalign.Fair enough, but why is the jam nut there at all then? I can't imagine any manufacturer is dying to increase material costs an additional $1-2 per arm to include a nut that has no purpose. So why are they doing so?
You don't know how adjustable control arms work. Come back to this and we'll revisit it when you do.Fair enough, but why is the jam nut there at all then? I can't imagine any manufacturer is dying to increase material costs an additional $1-2 per arm to include a nut that has no purpose. So why are they doing so?
The arms can't rotate more than their mounts would allow though anyway, right? No chance of an arm unscrewing for the simple reason that both ends are fixed - that part I get. It seems to me that the whole point of the jam nut is to keep the threaded part from rotating back and forth and wearing out the threads. You also get substantially better load bearing by have the threads fully engaged and avoiding the lash that would otherwise wear them over time.You don't want the arm rotating on the joint threads, that will lead to a failure eventually (the arm will unscrew itself and fall out, leaving you with two joints bolted to the axle/frame without any other connection). The jam nuts mitigate (eliminate, if done correctly) the arm from rotating itself. Instead, the joins can misalign.
Metalcloak joints self-center, so generally you should always seem them as "centered" in the mount. However JJs are free floating - so the joint will be any orientation within the mount. Unless someone installed them wrong they will allow for a good bit of misalignment. The installation should be done with them aligned the direction the jam nut would otherwise push them. Then you tighten each jam nut incrementally to avoid the arm spinning. That way the heads are aligned and allow the maximum movement (30ish degrees each direction).
<edited now that I see where this is coming from>You don't know how adjustable control arms work. Come back to this and we'll revisit it when you do.
No, that part you don’t get.No chance of an arm unscrewing for the simple reason that both ends are fixed - that part I get.
Am I in alternate land right now? The arm can't possibly come unscrewed - there is a bolt going through each end of it that is attached to either the frame or the axle. Unless you somehow managed to rotate the entire axle relative to the frame you will never disconnect the two ends of an adjustable control arm while it is still attached to the vehicle.No, that part you don’t get.
If you were to thread the arms without locknuts and wiggle them you would note movement..over time this will wear the threads and cause damage. Now install the lock nut and try to wiggle the arm..there will be no movement..so in short the lock nut keeps the threads from wearing/galling etc..Fair enough, but why is the jam nut there at all then? I can't imagine any manufacturer is dying to increase material costs an additional $1-2 per arm to include a nut that has no purpose. So why are they doing so
Gracias. I don’t think it’s the JJs then cause I just torqued the bolts and re-centered the JJ’s. Took a pray bar to move them.If a JJ control arm is banging side to side it desperately needs to be rebuilt.
If there is a bushing on one end of a control arm and a flex joint on the other, the flex joint should be in the middle of its range of motion when the bushing is in it's neutral state.Okay, okay, I see what happened here. I missed a sentence early on and have given the impression that I have a lack of understanding of control arms and jam nuts. My apologies for doing so. And my apologies to Mr. Blaine, since I now see where he thought I was just too stupid to understand how a screw and nut worked.
Let me completely re-state my question so it is fully formed:
Unlike the OP, I do NOT have johnny joints on both ends. I have a bushing on one end and a johnny joint on the other. I also, however, find that periodically the johnny joint end will come misaligned from the bushing end. The bushing end, by definition, is always centered (ability to rotate, albeit in a limited fashion, equally one way or the other). The johnny joint end, however, will sometimes look like the OPs. I missed the part where the OP indicated that both ends of his are still aligned.
In my case, they aren't. So the simple question I was trying to ask was this:
When I lock down the jam nut, so that the adjustable control arm doesn't spin, do I want the johnny joint end centered while the vehicle is sitting under its own weight, or do I want it to be biased one way or the other? Centered would necessarily allow the joint to flex equally in either direction, which would be exactly as desired if a suspension were capable of articulating the joint equal amounts when the wheel goes up or down. Is that accurate, however? But are the up travel and down travel actually equal? It would seem not, which might imply that we would NOT want the johnny joint end centered when the vehicle is resting, but rather biased to allow more joint articulation to the down travel since that is generally (I think) greater than up travel.
Hopefully that makes more sense - now you can tell me that I'm an idiot for not understanding suspension travel, but hopefully I've at least demonstrated that I understand the principles of a control arm.
d-
Oh no, it was you and correctly since you are clearly illustrating my point. The double adjustable arms are right and left hand thread. With a bit of patience and fiddling around, it is possible to bolt all 4 lower joints in the mounts and then screw the arm onto them.Am I in alternate land right now? The arm can't possibly come unscrewed - there is a bolt going through each end of it that is attached to either the frame or the axle. Unless you somehow managed to rotate the entire axle relative to the frame you will never disconnect the two ends of an adjustable control arm while it is still attached to the vehicle.
I'm wondering if perhaps Mr. Blaine meant to respond to you instead of to me...