Hey Everybody,


I'm hoping for a little advice here. I'm not a mechanic so my question may seem simple, but here goes:


I've got a 2004.5 LLY 4x4 short bed with 15,000 miles on it. When I got the truck, I lowered (oh my god, you did what?) yes, lowered the front end. I replaced the brackets on the back and dropped the rear 2.5 inches. The front came down 1.5 inches. I've made no other mods to the truck.


My question is this, since lowering the front, I've had to have the front aligned three times. One time while relaxing the torsion bars to drop the front and two times since. It is now driving straight. The real problem is, now the front end feels as though it rattles on rough streets. It feels shakey and not strong. Has anyone else had this problem? What do I tell the dealer? Said another way, it feels like it's got 250,000 miles on it instead of 15,000. I had a professional drop the truck and he told me it would not create a problem.


Thanks!





Edited by: crghill

You have the control arms too close to the bump stops probably. Instead
of using the t-bars and shocks to do all of the work, you're probably
riding on the rubber bumper and close to the solid stop. Actually I
don't think there is a hard stop. You can see the raised part of the
lower control arm looks like it makes contact to the right of the
rubber. This picture is my lower control arm after the tree smashe the
truck into the pavement, compressing the suspension untill the upper
control arms hit the upper brackets. You can see it blew out the shock.



http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/uploads/hoot/2004-10-17_162628_DSCN4109.jpg






Edited by: hoot

Hoot,


Does that mean I need to raise the front end back up then? I'm no mechanic so please give me the same answer you'd give a ten year old kid. Haahaha


Thanks for your reply

Yes... but do it in increments till you find a happy median. crank it a
couple turns and drive it for awhile. If its not satisfactory, crank a
few more.

Make sure you at least jack the tire up on the side your adjusting. Someone not to long ago was injured adjusting their T-bars by force stripping the bolt threads.


Mark the socket and do equal turns on each side while jacking.





Mac

Macs right. Also grease the jack screw threads liberally.

My 04 seems like it has 250k on it too with only 12k. I went up with mine and put 285s. My front rattles too like its worn out. Crqwled all over under it and can't seem to find anything lose. It's been aligned too. I haven't had it in to the dealer yet. So you may not be to low. Just some fyi...

The new truck still suffer from intermediate steering shaft problems.


The problem is that you can't even get replacement ones. Lube it and have the dealer put that part on backorder.

rescueadam, you will run into problems going too high. Stock height or a little higher rides the best in my opinion. Lower it back down and see if it rides better.

Jefro:


What are the symptoms of the intermediate steering shaft problems you are referring to?


Thanks!

I have heard mine rattles on rough streets to. It just started doing this about a month ago.

Hey Guys,


Took it to the dealer today and they are saying steering shaft issue is the cause. As predicted in the thread, the part is on backorder. 4 days to 4 weeks to get it. I'm still gonna raise the front back up a bit as I think it may be hitting the stops. I'll let you know what else I find out.


Thanks!