Finished TB Crank

04crewvt · Post by **04crewvt** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 10:20 am

Well I went ahead and cranked the t-bars and got 1.5" lift. I cranked driver side 5 full turns and the passenger side only 3. I had around 5 threads showing on the drivers side but only 2 on the passengers side. All corners now sit 32.5" from ground to flair. Drove about 200mi so far with no settling yet. Got alignment done and it was not a problem didn't max out any adjustments. Ride is much stiffer which is what I wanted. I was tired of the body sinking when I climbed in and handling is much better. It's no wonder that the previous owners traded this in because they hated the way it handled it was way soft.
Now if I could get the clunk out of the rear suspension and get rid of the very annoying wheel hop I would be all set.
That is until I can afford the Mystery Lift

Post by **HenryJ** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 10:35 am

For the clunk in the rear suspension you might check the emercency brake cables-

HenryJ wrote:
Mat73GNZ wrote:
Ken wrote:...I had the exact same issue and exact same noise. ...it was the brake cables/shielding in the left rear wheel well area. ...
Yup, I had the same thing shortly after buying the truck! I have to figure out a permanent fix for this, because the sound is coming back.
Me four..., same problem. I used some zip-ties to tie them together.

For wheel hop / spring wrap, have you upgraded the shocks yet?

04crewvt · Post by **04crewvt** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 10:42 am

Had the truck in to the dealership for some warranty work and they adjusted the e-brake maybe they pinched something. I have to take it in for the rest of the work so iI will have them check that at the same time. I changed the shocks first thing, the factory shocks were shot with less than 7k on the truck went with Rancho RSX all the way around. I have lift springs on the back as well as clamping the front of the spring pack together. I get a bad bouncing that feels like the rear pumpkin is just floating around in back when I go over ripples in road.

Post by **HenryJ** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 10:49 am

You might try playing with tire pressures for the washboard roads.

04crewvt · Post by **04crewvt** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:06 am

up or down ? Factory pressure 32psi was what I was running I just went to 35psi on my snows to help milage and unfortunately in Vermont even many of the "highways" are as bad as many washboard roads elsewhere. Only state I know where people actively fight to keep there roads from being paved and where repairs are how many layers of hot top before you really need to repave the ruts.

Post by **HenryJ** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:12 am

I was going to say down, but then air up again for the highways. That may not be practical.

It may be that the shocks you are running are too stiff, or valved wrong for the conditions?

Some weight on the rear may help?

04crewvt · Post by **04crewvt** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:20 am

RSX has the variable valving for just that reason. I had these on my 95 blazer on the same roads without nearly the same problems, maybe the stiffer body from being 1 piece instead of cab and bed. By the way I do carry a tool kit in the bed apx 50lbs and have tried shifting it from front to back to see if that would make any difference but no effect. Only other difference was I did have the roadmaster suspension system in the blazer I might have to put that in to see if that helps once I get back to having some funding for such things

Post by **HenryJ** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:24 am

04crewvt wrote:I did have the roadmaster suspension system...

What is that?

04crewvt · Post by **04crewvt** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:28 am

http://www.activesuspension.com/

Here is a link. I put these in to fix sag in rear of the blazer I got it with 230,000K on it and it was a bit low in the rear. I just hoped that a new truck wouldn"t need them. Guess the rear suspension just really isn"t all it should be from the factory.

04crewvt · Post by **04crewvt** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:34 am

I think the other problem is the weight distribution in the truck. With the gass tank on the drivers side and me being the only person in the truck all the weight is on just one side and before anyone has a question about weight I am 6'5" and 350lbs so I do put quite a load on just one side, before the tb crank the drivers side would sink about 2 inches when i got in. the few times I have loaded the truck down it handles much better.

Post by **HenryJ** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:39 am

If you have a local spring shop, they may be able to build you a kit much like the Boise SpringWorks kit.
I have been pleased with the performance.

04crewvt · Post by **04crewvt** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:43 am

yea I have seen those on the other threads they looked like what I did to my 72 Nova years ago to get the back end up where it belonged. I just went to the local junkyard and mixed and matched spring sets to get the height I needed

rlith · Post by **rlith** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 3:51 am

Don't forget, running your tbars up that much, your truck now needs an alignment... You may have trouble getting the tow to the correct angle with the way it's pitched now. Get it aligned!

04crewvt · Post by **04crewvt** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 3:58 am

As I stated in first message I got the alignment done with no problems. Both toe and camber were way off but they had plenty of room to adjust to perfect alignment. I think part of my problem with the way the front end felt was that is was misaligned from the factory since the camber shouldn't have been affected by the crank acording to the guy I had aligning it. I told him what I had done so that when he had it on the rack he could compensate and back it down if needed but it was fine.

Post by **HenryJ** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:38 am

Any adjustments to the front trim height will affect camber , caster, and toe.

The IFS front is hard to keep aligned since too darn many parts of the front axle are moving around.

I will say that caster should be affected the least of the three. That may have been what he said?

04crewvt · Post by **04crewvt** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:12 am

most of the adjustment was to the tierod adjusters whichever that is not sure if that is caster, camber or toe whichever it was way off. I haven't got printout of the before just the after numbers as his printer was dead. as long as it's good now I guess I am all set.