Is my front end slowly dropping?

[newz71]

I am a very proud new owner of a '02 Tahoe z71, well new to me anyway, and I am in love with every aspect of this beast! I am noticing that since I brought it home, the front end seems to be dropping? I see other Chevy trucks do this as well. Is this tipical with a real heavy engine, or a product of replaced factory shocks with crappy ones?
Any recomendations on replacement shocks or struts? I want it to be level, not look like it is a tiger about to pounce on a turtle!

[TRANSFORMDEZIGN]

Originally Posted by newz71

I am a very proud new owner of a '02 Tahoe z71, well new to me anyway, and I am in love with every aspect of this beast! I am noticing that since I brought it home, the front end seems to be dropping? I see other Chevy trucks do this as well. Is this tipical with a real heavy engine, or a product of replaced factory shocks with crappy ones?
Any recomendations on replacement shocks or struts? I want it to be level, not look like it is a tiger about to pounce on a turtle!

Are you sure that it's sagging? The rear end should be a little higher, in case you want to haul or tow things.

[andjh123]

The shocks have nothing to do with how high or low the vehicle sits--they just dampen the oscillating motion of the springs that are responsible for supporting the vehicle's weight. You might have your front torsion bars checked or retightened slightly. These serve as "springs" to support the front end and gradually droop over time (yrs).

[newz71]

Thats great info. Another question, would they droop over just a few months? Maybe if they were just "retightened" recently and not replaced would they droop sooner? The truck has 55,000 miles on it. What may you recomend, if anything, that would be worn out and need to be replaced? Torsion bars? How much?

[andjh123]

Noticeable sag over the course of days, weeks or even months is definitely not normal unless you were doing some serious offroading on a frequent basis or else you banged and warped the torsion bars themselves. Even if you maxed out the lift, with normal driving it should take quite awhile to come back down. Also perhaps the adjuster bolts slip for whatever reason? This is sort of hard to believe though, something under that type of load is more likely completely strip and give way (bottoming the front out) or else slip a little and then bind permanently. If you have a habit of adjusting the bolts without taking weight off the front this tends to tear up the bolts and threading.

I would just adjust the front up to where you want it and measure how high it is (on level ground of course). This way you can figure out if it's actually sagging at an increased rate.