I talked to my dealership and the mechanic said if I adjust my torsion bars to raise the front end, will make the front tires wear on one side. I just thought how many have done this after about a year or 2yrs have had any tires that they noticed inproper tire wear.

Thanks Shane

 

I too am going to do this in the next few months with my new shocks (Bilstins). I have been told by serveral people that adjusting the bars causes no problems other than changing the areo dynamics a bit and stifining the ride a bit up front.

 

Changes suspension travel too, you may have to get an alignment also.

 

Oh yea forgot to mention the alignment thing. Now when you say it affects suspention travel, do you mean you lose travel or gain travel? I would also guess that it would make a diffrence of what shocks you have as well.

 

Didn't say you would lose suspension travel, just change it. Effectively lessen downward travel, increase upward.

 

I don't want to start a war but adding tension to the torsion bars will preload the front end (shorter travel on the up stroke). At the same time add more damping on the down stroke . This makes it seem as you get more travel on the upstroke and less on the downstroke . It is a weight distribution thing ....

 

Hey Shane. Just FYI since your truck is a 02'. Ford will do a free alignment and balance and rotate in the first 12,000 miles. Crank your bars and then go get your free alignment and you should be good to go. My dealer even put in the camber kits while they had it.

 

Thanks for the information 02Screw I think I will do that know.

Shane

 

are you guys sure that ford will do an allignment for free in the first 12000 miles?

 

nevermind, i just checked my warranty card and you are right. i will be going in soon.
thanks
jesse

 

I have been told that Ford may not do the alignment if you have made any modifications or have (noticably) done extensive offroading. Again they may do it no questions asked but a warning you may be in for a "sorry but...."

 

Actually, if you have a good relationship with your dealer's service department, they'll do the alignment no matter what and put it under the warranty so long as you get it done before the 12/12,000 period.

It was my service writer who told me about the alignment under warranty back when I had the '97. Since then, it's been an automatic thing whenever one of my vehicles go in for the 10K service.

 

Both of my front tires are just barely scuffing along the outside edge. The inside edge has the outermost **** still on them so the inside is not scuffing or rolling on the edge at all. I figure if it's free I'll get my alignment checked. It drives straight and handles great. Yes my torsion bars are up all the way and this is 6300 miles. I'm going Saturday morning to get mine checked and I'll let you know if it's off or needed adjusting. I'm simply going to tell them I want to make sure everything is OK with the outside edge of the tires scuffing like that. I don't think I'll say anything about the bars unless they ask. I'm just curious as to how good of a front end man I end up getting...Will he say "yes I can fix it from rolling the outside edges like that" or will he just say"duuu, well it's in specs....????"

 

OK, just got back from getting my front end aligned. Yes, I went to the dealer and they did it under the warranty with no questions asked...Well, one of the service writers didn't even know you could do that until I told him and he went and checked, but that's another story. I think it's funny when I know there job better than they do. Anyways...I don't know what the specs were before I raised the torsion bars but here's what I had...

Total Toe---before +.96 [-.05 - +.45] after 0.0
Camber---before -.88L/-.03R [-.8 - +.6] after -.29L/+.12R
Caster---before 3.68L/4.65R [3.6-5.6L/4.3-6.3R] after 3.6L/4.62R

If you don't understand my listing please let me know but to sum it up, the toe was waaaaaayy off. That was the only thing really hurting anything and that's what was scuffing my tires. The before and after numbers are before and after the 'alignment' not before and after raising the bars. I don't know what my specs were before that or if raising the bars changed things but I did in fact need an alignment. The numbers in between the [****] are the recommended specs if anyone want's that info also.

Oh yea, neither the service writer or the front end guy said a word about the torsion bars. I even talked to him a couple of times and he never mentioned it or moved them. They were left just were I had them set to begin with. Obviously they DO NOT affect the ability to adjust the alignment.

 

One thing I have learned is that Fords specs are very lose, so you can get an alignment to spec and it may still be a little off. Most allignment shops so everything to spec and no more, some smaller or really good shops will align it as best they can even past specs.

Look around for allignment shops and hopefully you can find a good one.