BDS ball joint gives way... What a mess.

[FishOn]

I'm still willing to give BDS the benefit of doubt... They've been very responsive and seem concerned about the failure, so we'll see what shakes out. In my opinion, these are still fairly isolated incidents. We know that there are a TON of BDS kits on the road today and there's supposedly a bad apple from every tree, right?

 

[Ram1500rsm]

BDS replied within 2 hours of my email... Pretty good start for customer service.
As for replacing the BJ with something stronger... Good luck finding something more resilient than a Moog.

Moogs will be more resilient to the elements sure, say you live in the salt belt or you're running muddy trails all the time.
Uniballs will be stronger than moogs but they don't play good with the elements cause they're literally exposed to all of them from the top and bottom. Icon Delta Joints have the strenght of a uniball and are sealed from the elements similar to standard BJ's. You won't find Moogs in race applications.

The problem for you and aftermarket UCA's is that you have a lift that maintains factory geometry in your arms via a longer spindle hub I'm not sure if the BDS arms have more offset than the stockers. i think the BJ have better angle than factory and in therory should be a heavy duty Moog but we don't exactly what brand/model BJ they use.. Technically you should be able to run the Mopar UCA's in your lift and given the history of failures of these BDS UCA's recently, I wouldn't hesitate to run the cheapy Mopar ones in your particular application.

Do you have a part# for the BDS UCA's in your 6" kit ?

 

[FishOn]

Moogs will be more resilient to the elements sure, say you live in the salt belt or you're running muddy trails all the time.
Uniballs will be stronger than moogs but they don't play good with the elements cause they're literally exposed to all of them from the top and bottom. Icon Delta Joints have the strenght of a uniball and are sealed from the elements similar to standard BJ's. You won't find Moogs in race applications.

The problem for you and aftermarket UCA's is that you have a lift that maintains factory geometry in your arms via a longer spindle hub I'm not sure if the BDS arms have more offset than the stockers. i think the BJ have better angle than factory and in therory should be a heavy duty Moog but we don't exactly what brand/model BJ they use.. Technically you should be able to run the Mopar UCA's in your lift and given the history of failures of these BDS UCA's recently, I wouldn't hesitate to run the cheapy Mopar ones in your particular application.

Do you have a part# for the BDS UCA's in your 6" kit ?

The BDS UCA PN is 122251. Here's a pic/PN of the Moog BJ also.

 

[Ram1500rsm]

The BDS UCA PN is 122251. Here's a pic/PN of the Moog BJ also.

Ok, so that's the the same part number they use for both 4th and 5th gen RAM 1500 and 2-3" lift. I don't get how they can use this UCA with their 6" lift. This things are supposed to have an offset that in theory should be bad for bracket lifts. Or maybe they use the hub spindles from their 4" lift but because you added 2" extra via coilovers you can use UCA's for the 2-3 lift. If that was the case, you have more UCA options for a piece of mind since you'll be able to use any other uca out there. Or perhaps buy similar BJ's from a different place to minimize the chance of a bad BJ batch. it's not common to see BJ's snapping off like that.

 

[soSincerious]

snapping like that would lead me to believe the "shank and ball" portion of the joint was colliding into the shoulder of the socket ... sort of bottoming-out so to speak. maybe at full or near full droop? how else would it see such high sheer loads if this wasn't the case?

here's an interesting part ... look at the rust in the middle of one of the snapped BJ's .... that would lead me to believe it was cracked long enough for water to get in and rust to form.

 

[FirstTimeRamDriver]

Wow sorry to hear your experience. Now I am seriously reconsidering my lift kit mod. The crappy part is, doesn’t matter which company you buy a lift kit from, the experience would probably be very similar if/when something breaks.

 

[FuriousDZ]

Wow this is pretty scary, glad everyone is safe. Especially since I had this exact kit just installed not even 3 weeks ago. I guess I need to keep an eye on things. Is there anything I should keep and eye or ear out for that would raise a red flag that this may be coming?

 

[FishOn]

There were no indicators on my truck, and it sounds like there was nothing to RamRob91 either. All good, and BAM... With the Fox/BDS reputation, I have to believe this is a crappy batch of BJs or something. Their engineers are reviewing the pics/info I sent them regarding both of these failures.

 

[myles]

Wow sorry to hear your experience. Now I am seriously reconsidering my lift kit mod. The crappy part is, doesn’t matter which company you buy a lift kit from, the experience would probably be very similar if/when something breaks.

From what I've seen just stay away from uniballs, I've seen this happen before on a job site, owner of a company pulled up in his new truck and when he turned the uniball popped out and did this same thing. All I have on any of my lifts are ball joints and I've done plenty of offroading and never had one break/popout.

IMO unless you are racing and need the extreme angles of a uniball, stick with a balljoint, more reliable due to more surface area holding it all together.

 

[RebelWraith]

From what I've seen just stay away from uniballs, I've seen this happen before on a job site, owner of a company pulled up in his new truck and when he turned the uniball popped out and did this same thing. All I have on any of my lifts are ball joints and I've done plenty of offroading and never had one break/popout.

IMO unless you are racing and need the extreme angles of a uniball, stick with a balljoint, more reliable due to more surface area holding it all together.

The lift kits from BDS use the factory ball joints. If you opt for the upper control arms then they use MOOG ball joints. They do not use uniball.

 

[myles]

The lift kits from BDS use the factory ball joints. If you opt for the upper control arms then they use MOOG ball joints. They do not use uniball.

oh, good to know, kinda looks like a uniball, very fancy regular ball joint lol

 

[FuriousDZ]

There were no indicators on my truck, and it sounds like there was nothing to RamRob91 either. All good, and BAM... With the Fox/BDS reputation, I have to believe this is a crappy batch of BJs or something. Their engineers are reviewing the pics/info I sent them regarding both of these failures.

I have to take mine back next week for its 500 mile re-torque and check up. I guess i just have to hope I dont have one of the defective joints. BDS has a great rep for their lifts which is part of the reason I went with them. Thank you for sharing and keep us updated if any new info comes up.

 

[Ram1500rsm]

From what I've seen just stay away from uniballs, I've seen this happen before on a job site, owner of a company pulled up in his new truck and when he turned the uniball popped out and did this same thing. All I have on any of my lifts are ball joints and I've done plenty of offroading and never had one break/popout.

IMO unless you are racing and need the extreme angles of a uniball, stick with a balljoint, more reliable due to more surface area holding it all together.

?? The snapped UCA's featured here have both Moog BJ's with more likely your traditional Moog stud, they're steel alloy heat treated. Moog says their studs will bend but won't break in the event of say a collision. https://www.moogparts.com/technologies.html

Don't know that BDS will be able to study why the stud snapped, Moog should be able to say what happened. What caused the fracture? , shear forces induced by what ? already micro fractured stud ? Too much torque on the nut securing the stud to the spindle along with some crazy force induced by the BJ binding during the suspension max compression or max droop ?

Uniballs should all use factory grade 8 bolts to hold your spindle. if they're not throw the bolts in the garbage and get grade 8 ones. Sure everyhting could snap but given the reviews out there grade 8 are very damn strong and most are zync plated too. i'm sure grade 8 stuff is stronger than the metal on the Moog BJ's. Offroad racing applications not only use uniballs because they can flex, they use them because they're crazy strong.

 

[SurfRebel20]

were these bds ucas installed my shops or self installed. if installed at a shop ide assume they were tightened with an impact gun like everything else at a shop. I've never seen a shop actually use torque specs to tighten anything. Ball joints are around 50lb torque spec i believe and using an impact gun would more than triple that spec.

 

[Ram1500rsm]

Any updates from BDS as to what caused the BJ failures ? Or they really don’t give a crap ? Friend of a friend calls in yesterday night to tell his truck is at the dealer cause the UCA broke and took away half of his front suspension. As a joke I go I bet he has a BDS 6” lift and the BDS UCA broke from the BJ... And he says yes... WTF?

 

[FuriousDZ]

1 or 2 here or there and Id say maybe coincidence....3rd one now and thats just on this forum sounds like an issue...especially since i have this lift.
Id be curious to know mileage on each of these breaks and also how much BDS is looking into this issue before someone gets hurt or worse.

I actually just DM'd BDS on IG with a link to this thread so we'll see what happens.

 

[Jako]

Passed 2 trucks with driver side wheel broken off within the last 2 weeks. Didn't pay attention to brand but I don't believe either one where Rams. Both looked lifted.

 

[JohnnyTyler]

New to forum. Have a 2021 for about two weeks now. Looking to lift and ran into this thread. Maybe an ignorant question, but is there some certainty that the upper BJ failed first? Seems that picturing it in my head, when making a turn and giving it a little gas that it would be putting more shear force on the BJ closest to the part of the tire in contact with the ground? Just a thought.

 

[FishOn]

Obviously there isn't any "certainty" to what gave way first... But the only thing that was changed was the suspension lift. Either the upper or lower went, and snowball effect from there. It's interesting that there are now 3 (just on our forum) examples of BDS UCSa being involved in mysterious/coincidental failures.
FWIW, I don't think any legitimate "high end" suspension kit should experience the issues that RAMROB91 and I have had. Neither of us romped it hard before the breakage, there were no "direct impact forces" and judging from the pictures, neither of us was anywhere near full lock, or even turning for that matter when "something" snapped.

 

[FuriousDZ]

Obviously there isn't any "certainty" to what gave way first... But the only thing that was changed was the suspension lift. Either the upper or lower went, and snowball effect from there. It's interesting that there are now 3 (just on our forum) examples of BDS UCSa being involved in mysterious/coincidental failures.
FWIW, I don't think any legitimate "high end" suspension kit should experience the issues that RAMROB91 and I have had. Neither of us romped it hard before the breakage, there were no "direct impact forces" and judging from the pictures, neither of us was anywhere near full lock, or even turning for that matter when "something" snapped.

Do you know if either of the other 2 cases were able to get the failed parts out to BDS to analyze? Unfortunately I feel like without that there is no real way to get to the bottom of this