Hello, this is my first post and first day here. I bought the torsion bar keys and just need to know how to get the keys in? Do I take the cross member out completely? It looks like the front of the torsion bars can be pushed out frontwards or backwards but you cant push them out from the back where the hole is cause the key is there. I am pretty good with this stuff but this is MY FIRST FORD truck so bare with me on my stupidity. I have an 03 F-150 4x4...Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Your first mistake was buying the keys. They will destroy your ride quality and put way to much preload on ur bars. Should have done your research.

 

true. sell the keys on ebay and just crank up the stock ones. or your next post wil be "need new balljoints WTF?"

 

I agree.

 

Instead of bashing your your purchase I'll give you some advise. The first thing you need to do is unload the torsion bars, there is a special tool made by OTC to safely get this done. In theory the torsion bars should just slide foward in the control arms, but after a few years of rust they get siezed right up in there. So the best way to remove the keys is to remove the cross-member and slide it back, then the keys should fall out. If the keys don't want to come off you may have to give the cross-member a few blows with a big hammer. Try soaking everything down with some PB Blaster for a few days to try to loosen them up.

 

We are saving the guy from future problems.

 

Well thanks for everyone's real opinion about it anyway.

 

Just trying to help you out buddy, didnt mean to be a jerk. You can crank your stock tbars with stock keys to level your truck. Sell the other ones.

 

Well, I am curious as to how high it will go cranking the keys as far as they will go. Seems you are saying it will level out with my originals. What I dont understand is that the aftermarket ones say it will add 2 to 3 inches of lift and its my belief that it will take around 2.5 to totally level it out. Not sure why they would sell the aftermarket ones if the original ones cranked will go that high? Guess I just need to wait till UPS delivers them and before I install them just go ahead and crank them as much as possible and measure how high the change will be? I dont want to do it now since I am driving the truck and just got new tires and dont want to ruin them.

 

You will get about 2inches of lift.

 

Odd question, but how do you crank torsion bars? my friend has a nissan xterra that has torsionbars and he wants to crank them, so how exactly do you do it?

 

Just turn the bolts an even number of times.

 

I would not crank them all the way, it can put to much pressure on the t-bars. It could also lead to front end trouble. I would just crank them enough to level it out. Remember to get a front end alignment after you crank'em. There is also a very useful search button on here. There is a alot of info about cranking the t-bars in there.

 

With oem keys you can crank them all the way without putting to much preload on the tbars. With aftermarket keys....well forget about aftermarket keys. They are bad.