Torsion bar removal and cleaning

What am I going to run into if I take the torsion bars out of the truck and regrease and clean the ends. The truck was owned prior by people who just drove it and did very minor PM's to the vehicle. I hear a clicking sound in the torsion bar area and it goes away if I spray silicone spray on it till the next rain shower and it washes the stuff away. I see the rusted area and was wondering what type of insulator is used on the adjuster. All help will be greatly appreciated.

I would get a needle for a grease gun and pump the sockets full of a high quality grease. Unless you are familiar with the torsion system, they can be a pain to get adjusted properly.

What am I going to run into if I take the torsion bars out of the truck and regrease and clean the ends. The truck was owned prior by people who just drove it and did very minor PM's to the vehicle. I hear a clicking sound in the torsion bar area and it goes away if I spray silicone spray on it till the next rain shower and it washes the stuff away. I see the rusted area and was wondering what type of insulator is used on the adjuster. All help will be greatly appreciated.

Well, I did this just recently, so here goes....

The torsion bars put a LOT of pressure on the torsion bar adjusting screws. Ford has a special puller for grabbing onto the frame crossmember and lifting the torion bar adjuster off of the adjuster bolt so you can then remove the bolt and slotted nut. I used a large gear puller, but kept my hands in a safe position (as well as my head) while doing this. If the gear puller slips while you are doing this the tension on the torsion bar will send things flying.

Check your lower ball joints before you start. If they are bad, you can easily pull the lower control arms once the torsion bars are out. If you do the ball joints, you need to support the front wheel assembly with a jackstand while the control arm is out. Ford says you can damage the front axle assembly if you just let it droop. I did my ball joints this way and I must say it was nice - no messing with the brakes, hubs, steering knucle, axle, etc.

Anytime you back out the torsion bar adjusting bolts, you should put in new ones. They are coated with a special dry adhesive which holds them in place -(instead of locknuts). They are about 3.50 each, so no biggie. If you reuse the old ones, they can back themselves out, and you will lose your ride height adjustment, which in turn causes your front end to go toe out. That ruins tires. Takes anywhere from 4000 to 8000 miles or so for this to happen.

I know all this cause the last people who worked on my front end didn't use new adjusting bolts.

I also had the click noise from the adjuster/ rear mount area. Ford (refer to previous sentence here) replaced the rear torsion pads to fix it. They may also have replaced the torsion adjuster arm itself - can't remember. I would look for wear on the area that the torsion bar slips into - the hexagon shaped area. Any wear here is unacceptable, I believe.

Ford dealers have a bulletin on the noise you are having, so if you talk to the dealer they may be able to give you a little more detail.

Oh yeah, read up on how to do the front ride height adjustment. You must do that after messing with the adjustment bolts. Then you will need to get your toe in set.

All in all not that bad of a job, just watch those fingers while you have have tension on the puller!

I went to the local Ford dealer today and ordered the Adj bolts, nuts and the arms. It appears that the adjuster arms are coate with a Kevlar pad that sits against the frame rail. I suspect that it was here that the "NOISE" comes from. I'll keep in mind that "Caution" you describe while taking this apart. I'll see if my Local parts store rents the tool needed to replace the bolts. If not I'll be sure to take particular caution in doing this job. Thanks for the advise. Oh by the way the parts cost me $104.00. I guess this a alot cheaper than what they would have charged.

Replaced the rear adj arms/pads (one piece) the old ones had the Kevlar pad completly torn through. I am thinking of maybe replacing the torsion bars at a later date. I'm gonna wait a few days before I do the height adjustment. I know the difference in the pads itself will make the height different. Easy job. Rate it a 3 on the 10 wrench scale.

Still got all ten fingers? Guess it was a success...

I have not heard of anyone having to replace torsion bars on ex's....
assuming the noise disappeared I think you're ok.

Save the cash for the new wheels, tires, boomboxes, gps system, body kit, etc, etc.

That is the worst rear pad I have heard of however.

Ok when I went to do the height adjustment I noticed that the right hand torsion bar adjuster had a considerable amount of more threads showing than the left one, at the same height. I still have a small click sound and I attribute that to the way the adjusters fit on the old bars. (somewhat loose) I have ordered a set of bars for the trux and they should be here by the weekend. When I took the old adjusters off,after removing the height adj. bolt, I noticed that there was hardly any tension in the bars. I didn't even need a puller to remove the adjuster the bar sort of just hung there once the bolt was removed and I pushed the adj. up and removed the nut assy. then when I let the adjuster go it dropped maybe 3/4" at the most.NO tension at all. So that why I am assuming the bars need to be replaced. Well I got them ordered so I'll be telling the story soon as to what happened. Just hope I can keep my two index fingers (those are my typing fingers) LOL. Thanks and will advise when I get the job done.

Ok when I went to do the height adjustment I noticed that the right hand torsion bar adjuster had a considerable amount of more threads showing than the left one, at the same height. I still have a small click sound and I attribute that to the way the adjusters fit on the old bars. (somewhat loose) I have ordered a set of bars for the trux and they should be here by the weekend. When I took the old adjusters off,after removing the height adj. bolt, I noticed that there was hardly any tension in the bars. I didn't even need a puller to remove the adjuster the bar sort of just hung there once the bolt was removed and I pushed the adj. up and removed the nut assy. then when I let the adjuster go it dropped maybe 3/4" at the most.NO tension at all. So that why I am assuming the bars need to be replaced. Well I got them ordered so I'll be telling the story soon as to what happened. Just hope I can keep my two index fingers (those are my typing fingers) LOL. Thanks and will advise when I get the job done.


Well, if I understand your post, it does sound like something is wrong. There should be quite a bit of tension on the bolt, and the adjuster bar should still have tension on it when you back the bolt all the way out and the adjuster is pressing down on the nut. At that point the puller should be required to lift the adjuster off of the nut. That torsion bar is holding up about a 1,000 lbs of weight.

You probably know you need another new set of bolts? Once you back em out to redo things that adhesive is gone...

Also, I noticed when doing mine that the rounded nose of the adjuster bolt fits up into an indentation on the adjuster bar. You do have to make sure that you work the placement of the torsion bar on the pad a little and get the nose of the bolt centered up in the adjuster bar indentation. If you don't get it centered, it will not necessarily do it itself. I used a hammer with a wooden block as a cushion to move stuff around. Could that be part of the reason there is different adjustment on the two sides one bolt did not get up fully into the indentation?

The adjuster bar can be installed in 6 positions on the back of the torsion bar, but obviously only one is correct. If you put the adjuster bar on in the wrong position, it installs easily but can't be adjusted up enough to give you the correct ride height. You probably already knew that....

Anyway, hope it all works out this time. It has to fix the click as there are no other parts to replace back there!!