Hotchkis UCA heim joint failure

[72bluNblu]

How's the progress going? Interested to hear how it all came together.

Have the Hotchkis TVS sitting in my Summit cart, cursor hovering over the submit button.

The UCA's with the new rod ends and boots have been on the car since late August, so far no real issues. The boots aren't exactly easy to install, and they make the UCA installation with the spacers a little tricky. Plus, its pretty easy to tear the boots if they get pinched during installation.

The other issue I see is that the rod ends are pretty much impossible to inspect with the boots on. So, you're pretty much stuck with lubing the crap out of them, installing them, and then driving it. If they start making noise, you'll have to pull the UCA's and inspect them. But so far so good for me.

The rod ends are really the only issue, and its not really Hotchkis' fault, its just that rod ends on a daily driver like mine probably isn't the best plan. For cars that don't get driven in the rain, snow, mud, etc, like mine does I doubt it would be an issue.

[_Russ_]

The rod ends are really the only issue, and its not really Hotchkis' fault, its just that rod ends on a daily driver like mine probably isn't the best plan. For cars that don't get driven in the rain, snow, mud, etc, like mine does I doubt it would be an issue.

That's my main concern. Whilst mine isn't a daily driver, I drive it frequently, and in every condition. Rain, hail, shine, mud, dirt roads, interstate trips, peak hour traffic - the lot. I need 100% trouble free.

[72bluNblu]

That's my main concern. Whilst mine isn't a daily driver, I drive it frequently, and in every condition. Rain, hail, shine, mud, dirt roads, interstate trips, peak hour traffic - the lot. I need 100% trouble free.

Pretty much my story as well, it sees dirt roads, rain, snow, all of it. Not all the time of course, the snow thing is pretty infrequent, although the dirt roads thing happens about once a month. My first set of rod ends lasted 7k miles without boots in those conditions. With the boots I think the whole thing is much improved, they seem to keep the rod ends pretty well isolated. Not the easiest install with them though. The "seals it" brand seals would be easier to install, although they wouldn't totally encapsulate the rod ends. Still, they'd be a ton better than nothing.

Although I love the Hotchkiss UCA's, I'm beginning to think that for a daily driver, or maybe even a frequent driver, that stock UCA's with offset bushings are the way to go. Or maybe one of the bushed tubular UCA's out there, there are a couple of options for those now. The rod ends are great for handling, but I'm not sure they'll last as long as bushings under my current driving conditions.