Bowhunter said:
First time-long time. I have hung around these forums for some time now and have taken alot of useful info from this one and others but have never taken the time to join and contribute. Had an 01 Cummins, an 03 6.0 PSD which was purchased back by Ford after four rear mains, three faulty injectors, sensor/computer problems and finally, a crushed in drivers side by dealer employee while it was on the lot waiting for parts. The story is long and arduous but the result was good. All my money back and an now the owner of a fantastic 3/4 ton power house of a truck. Thank all of you for your wisdom and knowledge base. Sorry to ramble on.
My question. I was told that you can level the front of your truck so it is the same height as the rear by simply adjusting the torsion bars. Are any of you familiar with this and how is it done?
Welcome to The Diesel Place Bowhunter! I think it's great to have people that have had experience with Dodge and Ford. It helps keep the us all level headed... well some of us. Sorry to hear of you misfortune with the Ford. Hopefully for Ford's sake the worst of those issues are behind them.
Dmax Tim answered your question pretty thoroughly. He's also right about the alignment. Here are my thoughts.
I agree if you only raise it a little, I probably wouldn't bother with alignment.
Find a nice flat concrete floor or whatever... so long as it's nice and flat.
Before you start, take measurements at all four corners from the frame down to the floor. Draw a diagram and write the measurements down.
If you crank up the driver side front, the passenger rear will drop some.
Don't use an air impact gun. You can't count the turns.
Mark the two bolts to make it easier to count.
I use a breaker bar and a socket. Most of us that go full lift get about five turns. Do both bolts the same amount. They are very tight fitting threads so they don't turn during normal operation so a little grease is advisable.
If the truck doesn't sit level to start with, you can level it by not cranking one side as much as the other.
After making the adjustments, the truck really needs to be driven and then rechecked. It settles in after driving it a little. Alternatively you can get on the front bumper and jump up and down. This helps the front settle in to the new height. Recheck and record what you've done.
Some problems you can run into...
One or both bolts may already be close to fully engaged, from the factory. This is due to torsion bar and component tolerancing. Sometimes the factory needs to use all the threads to set the stock height. If that happens, you may need to swap to the different "keys" the other guys are using. The key is the forged steel dog that torsion bar anchors into and gets rotated by the bolt. I haven't heard too many people complaining about no thread travel available but some have.
If you do get it aligned afterward.. be sure the shop knows what they are doing. When I had mine aligned, they didn't know how to look up the new HD models and loaded in the specs for the older C/K body. If I wasn't there, they would have set the specs wrong.
Also, the older C/K trucks had a steel cresent plug that had to be knocked out by removing the uppper control arm, to facilitate alignment. The 99-UP trucks do not need to have this done but some alignment shops try to charge you $100-$200 to do it before alignment. It's thievery.
Our trucks 99-UP only have a plastic insert where the upper control arms attach to the frame that can be popped out with a screwdriver. If they don't know about it, they may try and make adjustments with this cresent plug still in place. My shop did and broke one of the "guide pins" off in the process.
One misconception is "Raising the truck by adjusting the torsion bars "twists" and loads the bars to create a rough ride." When you "tighten"
