2014-2018 Chevy/GMC Upper Control Arm Breakdown - For Lift Kits
Posted by CALVIN HALE on
Stamped Steel, Aluminum, and Forged Steel Control Arms
For the 2014-2016 Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra 1500 trucks, GM offered 3 different upper control arms: stamped steel, aluminum, and forged steel. Additionally, in 2014-2016 GM truck had two different knuckles—aluminum and steel—each with different ball joint hole sizes.
Stamped steel and aluminum arms have a larger ball joint that fit the same knuckle. Steel knuckles with forged steel control arms had smaller ball joint holes that match the cast steel arms only. This is the same setup found on 2007-2014 models. Forged steel and forged aluminum arms have retention clips on the ball joint so if the ball joint cup becomes distorted, it does not fail.
New Stamped Steel Arm Design
The NEW stamped steel arms have a ball joint that is sandwiched between the upper and lower pieces of the arm with a relatively small surface area for ball joint retention with no supporting clips. If these cups distort, the ball joint fails and falls out.
GM 1500 trucks built after April 1, 2016 are stamped steel arms mated to smaller steel knuckles with the larger of the two ball joints. Essentially, they are using the larger ball joint from the aluminum arm and putting it in a stamped arm and mating it to a smaller steel knuckle.