The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot '60-'66 Trucks Cranking down torsion bars?

Hi all. Kinda new to the forum so bare with me. I want to lower the front of my 1962 GMC truck just a bit. I read that you can crank down the torsion bars on an older post. What does that mean and how do you do it? How much lowering can you gain?

Actually what you do is unwind or release tension on the bars by loosening the adjusting bolt. Follow the bar to it's rear anchor point, and you'll find it connected to a crossmember under the cab via adjustable arms (as shown below):

[IMG]http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/2033/tbaradjust001.jpg[/IMG]

Simply unscrew the adjusting bolts and the front will drop. Use caution however in how much you lower the front. The further it drops, the more the arms hang down at the rear. On severely lowered trucks the arms hang below the scrub line and become a road hazard.

My '66 Dart has front torsion bar suspension which allowed me to level out the ride by increasing the tension, followed up with a front end allignment.

Figuring on doing the same on my '62 C-10.

Sniper,

If you decide to fool with them, take this advice, use and let soak a good pentrating fliud, suck as Kroll Oil or PB Blaster. put on a good amount, let soak overnight, apply it again, let soak over night once more, then SLOWLY turn the Big Nut BOTH ways for a little bit. Because if you break the special nut or strip that bolt you're in for a real treat to replace.

Something else to keep in mind, when you crank the bars down, you will be decreasing the spring rate, while this may make the ride softer, it will also decrease the springs ability to carry a load. This could end up giving you poor handling characteristics, potential for bottoming out easily (especially with that big heavy V6 up there) and increased tire wear. I would estimate you could probably go 2 inches of drop before you see any issues. You'll also need to get it realigned, as any ride hight change will change camber, caster, and toe. Also be aware, most alignment shops will not guarantee alignments of vehicles with altered suspensions.

I forgot to add that when I got the truck from the PO he had tried to make a low rider out of it, what he did was lower the front bu 4"+ and put clamps on the back springs (ruined them) When I had the entire front end rebuilt, they actually took a picture from a cell phone showing the differance. ALSO when you lower the front it you may have problems when you are turning and hit a hole it casues the tire to smack into the fender usually denting or bending it as I had on mine.

Should this lowering be done while the truck is on the ground or up on a lift?

Theoretically they should be done on the ground so you can see how far the truck drops for a specific turn of the bolts. Practically speaking, doing the adjustment when the suspension is "unloaded" is much less likely to strip the adjuster bolts. If you have access to a lift, you could unwind one turn, drop the truck, raise it back up and do another turn, etc until you're happy with the drop. The same thing could be done with a floor jack and stands, but it would be a lot more work.

Everything went perfect. Got a good 2" drop. Bolts were easy to turn when truck was on a jack. (PB Blaster) Still have an inch or so of threads left to adjust if I should want to go any lower. Thanks everyone for helping.

Everything went well for me too on my '62 C-10 Pickup. Between changing the tire height from 33" to 26" and cranking down the front suspension, I was able to lower the overall truck 7" and then the front end an additional 4 inches. I still want to lower the rear end some more and get wider tires. Love this Website...thanks all for your advice.