the solution ended up being to remove the uca chassis mounting bolts, torque the balljoint, then install the axle and mount the uca to the chassis.
so my order of operations for front end is
torsion bar into lca (loose)
lca to chassis
torsion bar into lca and xmember with lca hanging
knuckle to lca
uca balljoint to knuckle
axle into knuckle and diff
uca to chassis
sorry if that was obvious to some, not to me
so my order of operations for front end is
torsion bar into lca (loose)
lca to chassis
torsion bar into lca and xmember with lca hanging
knuckle to lca
uca balljoint to knuckle
axle into knuckle and diff
uca to chassis
sorry if that was obvious to some, not to me