Cranking torsion bars too much??

[Triathlete]

There are many on here who have their torsion bars cranked pretty much all the way and I have not heard of any breaking. If it is a concern though there are heavy duty torsion bars available through indy4x.

[JoFotoz]

Ditto Billys thoughts...

Mine are cranked at least 3.5 inches on OEM T/bars...
...no T/bar issues...and I've never heard of one breaking either.

Maybe your mechanic is playing safe, liability wise?

You may / will however have issues with CV boots and CV joints..
...due to increased angle.

CV boots may well tear as they have become 'accustomed' to a straighter angle...
...fitting new ones will help, as they are supple and will conform.

Also added angle will stress your CV joints.

A diff drop is recommended to help with both of these issues.

Cheers

jo

[Marlin]

Be warned, if you do the diff drop,the CV joints will thank you, but your prop shaft will not. I am on my third prop shaft, (the most recent one made it a few days before the boot tore). Prop shaft is easier to replace than the CV joint You can also have a custom prop shaft made, where as CV joints are limited to what you can find. Disadvantage to cranking the torsion bars, you lose your down travel and makes the ride worse. There needs to be a happy medium, Jo is running huge tires, and has to lift the front to squeeze the rubber in. I am running large tires and gutted the fenders to make room, so I managed to lower the front end down a bit from my original cranking, which improved performance.
I highly recommend the Indy4x torsion bars, they are pretty good.

[JoFotoz]

I'm confused! ( easily done!)

Be warned, if you do the diff drop,the CV joints will thank you, but your prop shaft will not. I am on my third prop shaft, (the most recent one made it a few days before the boot tore). .

You are the first I've heard of having front drive shaft issues after lifting..
...maybe I missed other threads though.

Rear shaft..YES..with 35's it gets a tad short if you use adjustable rear links to center wheels.

And.. not sure what boots you speak of..
...I've never seen boots on the front drive shaft....

Jo

[Marlin]

Take a look at the front prop shaft. It is a CV style shaft, has internal boots fore and aft. If you drop the front diff too much, it pinches the boots on the "cup" portion of the flange. The flange will deform to fit the new angle, the boot, not so much. The boot is not obvious like the CV joints, as they mount external to the shaft, the prop shaft is internal to the flange assemblies. Crawl under there and look
As for rear axle, I run the adjustable rear lowers, centered the axle and have been fortunate with no problems.
JoeD did my diff drop, CVs are perfectly straight (on a note, they do not like negative angles at all)

The arrow points to the boot location. The curve represents the changing angle as you lower the front differential. As you can see, there is not a whole lot of room for angle change. You may be driving around with ripped prop shaft boots right now. My last shaft boot ripped 3 or 4 years ago, but I never really had problems until I started playing in water and mud. So, if you stay out of mud and water, just add grease every so often, probably be fine. My last one started grinding, it was full of dirt. This new one got washed out in the pond in front of Baby Lion's back at Moab, so it is already making noise. Full of sand and grit.


You learned something new today!! At this point, it doesn't happen too often with the VX!

[JoFotoz]

Ah..OK

Its a difference of terminology..maybe my residual Brit speak!

I call that a "cuff"

Suffice to say..I've never had an issue..
...and your problems are the first I've heard of.

Jo