Yes, You Can Run JBA Upper Control Arms in an Endurance Rally

Can you run JBA upper control arms in a rally? Alex Buhite has been answering that question for five rallies straight. His 2nd gen Toyota Tacoma, "Sheryl," has run every one of them on the same set of JBA upper control arms, and those arms now have about 90,000 miles on them.

This past July, at 24 Hours of Appalachia in Hinton, West Virginia, nearly everything on Sheryl broke. The upper control arms weren't part of that list. We sponsored Alex for July's rally, but his JBA arms were on Sheryl long before that. Here's how it went.

Sheryl at a glance

What is 24 Hours of Appalachia?

24 Hours of Appalachia is a series of endurance rallies on the backroads and trails of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Teams get 24 hours to navigate a course of about 400 miles, give or take 100, which means driving through the night on terrain that tests the driver as much as the truck.

The field is big: more than 150 full-size vehicles, 175 motorcycles and 75 side-by-sides. Groups like Backroads of Appalachia and Appalachian Outlaw Trails, which has hundreds of miles of trails across West Virginia and Kentucky, help make these events happen.

Five rallies on the same JBA upper control arms

Alex has entered five 24 Hours of Appalachia rallies. He's finished four of them, two in the top 5, and Sheryl has run JBA upper control arms in every one.

Those arms have about 90,000 miles on them. About 30,000 miles before July's rally, Alex rebuilt the ball joints, and before July we sent him a fresh set of JBA bushings, which he installed for the run. That's the whole idea behind serviceable arms: the arms stay on the truck, and only the wear parts get replaced. Here's more on why replaceable ball joints matter.

July 2026: everything broke but the control arms

July's rally didn't go Sheryl's way, and the trouble started before Alex even left home.

He'd been out of town all week, so his pre-rally inspection didn't happen until the night before. When he dropped the skid plate for an oil change, he found the rear main seal leaking badly. He spent the next morning trying to track down a new seal, came up empty, and at 3 p.m. decided to send it anyway. Sheryl leaked about 5 quarts of oil on the 5-hour drive to Hinton, and Alex rolled in around 8 p.m., just in time for the drivers' meeting.

When the green flag dropped the next morning, the truck felt sluggish. Alex pushed on anyway, passing several Jeeps on 40-inch tires and working his way up to second. For about 3 hours and 100 miles, roughly a fifth of the course, he kept pace with a brand-new Ford Bronco Raptor.

Then it all came apart. Sheryl overheated twice, a seized piston locked up the front passenger brake caliper, the battery died, and a mount broke on the steering rack. Alex limped back to the start and let the organizers know he couldn't finish.

Through all of it, the upper control arms were fine. In Alex's words, "the rebuilt control arms held up great."

Picky about parts, except the control arms

Back home, Alex started ordering parts: an OEM steering rack, an OEM rear main seal, an upgraded power steering pump from Trail Gear and an upgraded carrier bearing from JXB Performance. These days he goes back to OEM for most repairs, because in his experience a lot of aftermarket parts don't hold up.

His upper control arms aren't on the replacement list. After about 90,000 miles and five rallies, the JBA arms stay.

What does a rally do to an upper control arm?

A weekend on the trail is hard on a front end. An endurance rally is harder, because the hits don't stop. Over hundreds of miles of washouts, ruts, rocks and mud, the front suspension cycles for hours at a time, often in the dark, with no shop between you and the finish.

Every one of those hits loads the upper control arm, the ball joint and the bushings. Here's what keeps JBA arms going:

Built for lifted trucks. JBA arms are designed for lifted geometry, with corrected ball joint angles and the clearance a lift needs.

The Max 90 ball joint. It has a 90-degree range of motion, its own grease fitting and a boot that seals out mud and water. It bolts in, so it can be rebuilt or replaced without replacing the arm.

Greaseable EZ Lube bushings. Each EZ Lube bushing has its own grease fitting, so you can keep it fed between events.

A 10-stage powder coat process. The prep under the finish keeps rust from spreading when rocks chip the coating. Here's what those 10 stages do.

American-made steel and a lifetime structural warranty. The arms are built in our Souderton, Pennsylvania, shop.

How do you prep upper control arms for a rally?

Alex's July run is a good reminder that a rally starts with the inspection, not the green flag. For your upper control arms:

1. Inspect early. Do it a week out, not the night before, so you have time to order parts.

2. Grease everything. Give each ball joint and bushing 3 to 4 pumps, and grease them again after any day in mud or water. We recommend Mobilgrease XHP 222 Special.

3. Check for play. Jack up each front wheel and rock it at the 12 and 6 o'clock positions. If a ball joint has play, deal with it before the event. Here are the 7 signs of a bad ball joint.

4. Check your bolts. Make sure the pivot bolts and the four ball joint bolts are tight, using the torque specs in your JBA install book.

5. Pack a spare Max 90. It fits either side, swaps with basic hand tools and doesn't need an alignment afterward. Here are 7 ways replaceable ball joints make life easier.

Back on the trail

We're stoked to be part of Sheryl's build, and we can't wait to see Alex back out there. If you're building a truck for endurance rallies, shop JBA upper control arms by vehicle, or see how JBA arms work on another 2nd gen Tacoma.

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