Have I read correctly that flipping the ball joints on a Gen 1 with Gen 1 arms is no good? It breaks tie rod ends?
John

How are you able to flip the ball joint? Aren't the Gen1s pressed in? I thought the only reason you can do it with gen2 is because they are bolted in.

Don't flip the balljoints on a Gen 1 using Gen 2 upper control arms or you'll break tierods.
You can flip the balljoints on a gen 2 but i've cranked my T bars all the way and haven't need to do a flip. I tried it once but it aligned closer with them bolted up stock.

Don't flip them, this is coming from experince.

I experinced way more problems with bent tierod ends, bent idler arms, bent center links, and chewed up tires after flipping my ball joints.

It messes up the geometry of the whole setup and starts to cause really annoying issues. Bending 100 dollar idler arms every trip sucks! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shiner.gif" alt="" />

Just curious has anyone thought about drilling out the hole and putting in a sleeve and fliping the tie rod? Would this potentialy fix the steering fitment issue?

So I guess the only thing I can do is find that guy on the board a couple of months ago and buy one of his scam 10in lift kits? Dang it.
John

Assuming you're doing a lift for bigger tires/more clearance, you may be able to buy one of the Lift Kits in Thailand for the Mitsu Challenger, import it, and modify it to fit your gen I.

That's what Dat did with his Sport which Carlos (CAP510) bought and is now selling. While not identical to your rig, it's probably close enough to do and be simpler than building one from scratch. Could also do a SAS to your Gen I like Edward (ES_97Sport) did with his Sport.

I've never been a fan of flipping the ball joints. It places all the stress on the bolts to hold the ball joint on the arm, whereas the stock setup the ball joint is encased by the arm itself. Seen Aussy guys do this and rip the knuckle off the A Arm.

The tie rod flipping seems like it would be a good Idea... until you really think about it. You want to make sure your tire rods maintain an angle equal to your A-Arms or you'll get crazy bump steer when your suspension cycles up and down. As the suspension cycles the arms move closer or farther from the vehicle due to angles. A properly designed system accounts for this by placing the tie rods at the correct angle in relation to the a A arms..If you throw off this complex geometry, your wheels will move (steer) during cycling, and with an IFS especially, you don't want this. The desert racers that run long travel IFS have this down to a science. We run of the mill 4 wheelers not so much, in fact a lot of us really don't get how suspension systems work beyond how many inches of "lift" we have...A reason I respect desert racing and think we expedition types could learn a lot from it. The KOH guys are getting it now...

Ball Joint flip using GenII UCA will work safely on GenI.
To prevent tie rod breaks, try using the drag link and tie rods from a GenII as well.

The solution is to use a torch up by the frame rails.