I took an interesting 10 mile trip on a level 5 4x4 road last Sunday. I could use some consultation. But first, here is some background:


As you can see from my sig, the XC SB has a 6" lift kit and 35" tires. the T bars have not been moved, as far as I know. The front end has a newly installed Ranch Hand bumper which extends out an additional ~6 inches (beyond the OEM bumper) and weighs somewhere between 175 and 200 lbs. Finally, the RS9000 shocks have an in-cab control which uses air from a mini Rancho compressor. It was aired down to the bottom level because I had fabbed and installed replacement gaskets and was waiting for 24 hours for the RV silicone to set.


OK, here is the story. The level 5 road was not too steep and I had the tires deflated to 30 psi for improved traction. Set at 4 Lo and in 1st gear (granny). I never bottomed out on any rocks. I did get a number of "creaks", and "pops" from the front end as I crawled over some large boulders, mostly buried in the road. I went extremely slow. In some cases with the clutch disengaged (gears not low enough), using the brakes to move inch by inch. Still I was getting these "pops" and "creaks" as I finaly made it over the big rocks and boulders.


My sense is that it was the front suspension as it reached the top of its travel. IIRC, the IFS only has about 1" of upward travel. Probably the setting of the shocks made this worse.


What do you think? Suggestions?


I was wondering about moving the T bar to add another inch of upward travel? would I have to get it re-aligned? What about adding dual shocks on the front?


Appreciate any thoughts. . .

Run one of the front tires up a ramp and 1 see what kinda flex you have and 2 maybe narrow down were the noise is coming from, a friend may help. Start running it up a ramp till you get the back tire wanting to come off the ground, kinda a RTI comphttp://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Approve.gif


I do remember sombody saying thier side steps were making noise as the truck flexed???


Droping th T bars will give you more upward travel but at the cost of downward. If going for max suspention travel start looking at what is limiting it and see what you can do about it. If its a shock for instance(run up the ramp with the shocks off and see if you gain any more travel) sometimes the limiters that keep the suspention from going down can be jacked with or yanked and cable type limiters put in thier place. Make sure your suspention is limited by either hitting rubber snubbers or cable limiters or just the limit of the spring. You dont want your shocks or ball joints or other parts limiting your travel. This will f em up


If you cant find a ramp or dont have a big hump or something to play on a fork lift or something picking up one tire at a time and letting it flex works well, or loading docks behind the local shop and save work too, you just may not want to get caughthttp://www.dieselplace.com/forum/smileys/Wink.gif The idea is to lif one tire untill another tire wants to lift off the ground.

Deadeye,


Is your truck sitting level? If it is, your T-bars have been moved. My truck has the same Fabtech 6" lift, and we had to crank the T-bars quite a bit to level the truck and fit the 35's with no rubbing. Plus you have the extra weight and extension in front, I'd bet money they were cranked at least a little.


In my experience, and I'm not an expert here, IFS always snaps, crackles and pops when stressed. I haven't been off-road in a truck with IFS that hasn't made some noise. Never any harm though. More an irritant than anything else.


If you're going to off-road it a lot, you're going to end up re-aligning it eventually anyway, so you mine as well play with the T-bars while off road and get them where you want them, then get it re-aligned. I wouldn't suggest driving on pavement for long after you are done playing around though.


Just my .02

I was wondering about moving the T bar to add another inch of upward travel? would I have to get it re-aligned? What about adding dual shocks on the front?


Appreciate any thoughts. . .





You will have to re-align it even for a 1" change. Check the angle of your tie-rods and CV joints before determining if you want to crank up the torsion bars.


Dual shocks on the front will not help for the type of driving you were doing. Dual shocks will only help prevent bottoming on higher speed off-roading.


Just a guess, but I would check the sway bar end links for the source of the creaking.Edited by: Amric

Hey, thanks for all the input.


Amric, the CV asles are slanted down some so torquing the T's some more would probably not be so good. I went on a long moderate trail on Sunday with the Rancho shocks in front set at level 8. I did not get a single pop or creak. I probably should check the sway bar links. When they do a Fabtech lift the flip the sway bar over. The Fabtech links were way to long and I broke 3 of them. I bought some new ones and cut them down to about 2 inches and they have not bent or broke since. I checked them after my run yesterday and they looked fine. I suspect that I could tighten them up some as I only intended them for temp use until Fabtech came out with a new design (which they never did). Based on the difference the shock setting made yesterday I wonder if you might not be correct about the dual shock if they are extremely stiff/stout schocks?


HD4fun, I can go ask the installer but they don't seem to be much different. The Fabtech front end "bump stop" is a lowered bracket with the "yellow" bump pad on the end which the lower A-arm is pushed up against. Since the CV axles are pointed down, why not shorten the bracket to move the "bump stop" up some? Would that allow more upward travel or the front end just sag?


Ratlover, I am going to try your suggestions once a find a place and my buddy gets some time. My guess is the travel limiter is the the "bump stop" for going up and a combo of sway bar, T bar, and schock for traveling down. I wish I could design a quick disconnect for the sway bar link. that would certainly increase the downward travel. What do you think about shortening the 'bump stop" lowering bracket, mentioned above?


The trip yesterday was about 10 miles and went from ~9800 feet up to 11,500 feet. Very rocky road. A few fairly steep sections and switch backs. Coming down you get a real sense of how HEAVY the front end of these trucks are! I wish there was some way to beef it up more. I do have Super Diesel's tie rod sleeves installed. Makes me more comfortable about those parts . . .


Any more advice?


Thanks.

Use caution when giving more suspension travel to the front. Increasing it will harm your CV joints. They bind when they droop to much and can snap if under load. This mostly seems to be a problem with the spindle lifts that increase track width and wheel travel.

The factory uses the shocks to limit droop travel. Aftermarket shocks for lifted application do not, and allow the CVs to droop all the way until the upper a-arm is resting on a metal pad on the frame. This is bad, becasue the CVs will bind when at full droop. If they are run when they are binding they can break.


I am trying to figure out how to install some bump stops on top of the pad on the frame. I currently have 11/16" bump stops and some steel channel. Limit straps would be a better choice.


Also, get those t-bars out of the way with the Realift t-bar relocators, if you haven't already. If you smack a t-bar on a rock hard enough it will break the t-bar, then you are stranded.


Blaine

if your lift uses urethane bushings up front, especially in the a-arms, that is where the creaking is coming from

Joey D; Thanks. I intended only to try to increase the upward, not the downward travel. If I were to shorten the Fabtech bump stop extensions the CVs would be able to lift up to a horizontal position. What I don't know is if this would increase upward travel or simply lower the front end?


Blaine; How do you test the safe amount of the droop in order to determing the length of the limit straps or the hight of the pad you want to put on the frame? My lift kit has a pare of compression bars that run back nearly parallel to the T bars. Do you have those on your Rancho lift? Can they be raised up as well? I see no value in spendin $$ on the Reallift relocators if the compression bars cannot be moved.


mtomac; as far as I know the only urethane bushings are those in the sway bar link to the lower A-arm. If the sway bar were temporarily disconnected during off roading would this improve travel? would it increase risk of binding?


I read somewhere that replacing the front hubs with manual hub locks provides slightly better fuel economy and allows use of 4 Lo gears in 2wd (rear). Opinions?


Thanks.

Deadeye,


My strut rods are much shorter than the t-bars, and they sit a couple inches higher than the lift kit's original t-bar location. The big benefit you get--along with getting the t-bars pout of harms way--is not having the t-bar crossmsmber hanging down in the middle of the frame. Being in the middle of the truck, it would be easy to drag it across a berm or rock.


Having said that, I do plan to flip the stut rods.


The way to tell how much to limit the suspension droop is trial and error. I jacked the nose all the way until the suspension was fully drooped, and found that the CVs did bind. I then lowered the nose and put a piece of 11/16" plywood between the a-arm and pad. That seems about right. I bought some 11/16" bump stops, but they compress too much--11/16" is the min height for a bump stop with the suspension at full droop. However, it takes some fiddling to set up the bump stops. It is hard to mount them and I haven't decided yet how I'm going to do it.


Blaine

Blaine;


Thanks for the explanation. I think I understand most of what you have written on these subjects. And I will likely follow you advices. I need to move my Amsoil dual remote oil filters somewhere else before I can lift the T bars back up.


How did you test the CV bind. Did you simply try to rotate the fronts by hand? I assume the transfer case and tranny were in neutral when you did this test?


Anyone;


any manual locking hubs out there for these trucks?


thanks.

I believe those t bar relocators chnge the torsion bar from a twisting motion to a twisting/up and down motion(if they are what i am thinking of anyway). A few off roaders i know think this is bad. I have no personaly experience with em and I have also not heard of them breaking anything. JMO but I would look into em a bit more, they are changing how your suspension operates, good/bad/indifferent. Besideds last i saw em they were being marketed more twards the pavement pounder croud as a way to "hid those unsightly t bars" No slam intended, to each his own.


the fronts lock and unlock in the center section, there is no way to keep the cv's from spinning while you are moving. They do sell cable type actuators to get rid of the electric/thermo/vaccume actuator (depending what kinda ifs you are talking about) in the center section though.

ratlover;


Very interisting opinion and may be valid. I will look into this some more.


do you know of a website for the cable type actuators? I would like to investigate.


thanks.

Deadeye,


The tranny was in park and the transfer case in 2 WD. It is really easy to tell when the CVs bind. When they are not in a bind, the front tire turns very smoothly. When they do bind, you can eaily feel it when turning the tires.


Ratlover,


I sort of thought the same thing as you until I researched this in detail. The stock t-bars do not just twist, the operate in an arc. The t-bars connect to the lower a-arm outboard of the the a-arms pivot point. The relocators do slightly change the arc, but it has no noticable effect on ride quality. I checked this myself. I drove my truck after installing the Rancho 4" lift, then I drove it later that same day after installing the t-bar relocators. The ride was unchanged. I ahve no had the relocators for 4 months and they ahve been great.


Also, most lift kits put the t-bars at an angle, with the higher the lift the steeper the angle. They change the geometry of the t-bars, and are often nosiy.


The t-bar relocators are very stout pieces. When properly installed, the t-bar itself will break before the relocator gives out.


To be honest, IFS rigs are not great for seriuos offroading. IFS trucks that have the t-bars hanging under the frame are less even optimum for offroad than those with relocated t-bars. I can't say this enough, if the t-bar gets hit hard while offroading--like getting smaked on a rock--it will break, the suspension will fully settle to that side, and the truck is not driveable. Not to mention having a crossmember sticking 4" under the frame that is in danger of hanging up every time you cross a berm ot a big rock.


The guy that makes these t-bar relocators is an avid offroader. He has an IFS S-10 rig that easily keeps up with the straight axle rigs. He has a bunch of buddies running these relocators under serious off road conditions with great success. Check him out:


http://realiftsusp.com/


Contact him here: http://realiftsusp.com/buscard

Blaine;


Thanks. I e-mailed these guys and got one back. I still have a question they have not yet answered. plus, i cannot open the instruction file they sent. my T bar cross member has already been lowered (when Fabtech was installed) it needs to be relocated but i cannot tell how to do it. hopefully they will respond soon.


they had a lot of interesting pics on there site and it seems you are accurate about their offroading. Looking at the part it seems to be pretty beefy.





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