[T1000000]

I'm doing ball joints and tie rods and drivaxles and all that good stuff on my 97 t100 4wd, and for the life up me i cannot figure out why upper control arm is frozen in the down postion, i mean i cant lift it up at all and especially not enough to get the steering knuckle back on to it. if i put a jack under it, it lifts the entire vehicle, i've hammered on it, nothing...what is going on here, can someone explain?

 

[Bitter]

The bushing is seized up solid, pretty weird but I've seen it happen. Can you loosen the nuts and get the bolts to turn? Sometimes you get things moving again but sometimes the bushing sleeve is seized to the bolt and then you have to start cutting.

 

[punk_and_goth]

Reason it's frozen is the torsion bars are pushing down...

 

[Bitter]

Pushing down on the upper control arm? I thought the lower control arm was the one with the torsion bar?

Well damn, that's unusual! :surprise:

 

[punk_and_goth]

Hard to see but it's bolted on top

 

[SC T100]

I believe the 4WDs have the torsion bar on top, and the 2WDs have them on the lower control arm.

 

[T1000000]

Torsion bar ey? I'm unfamiliar with these things, I was wondering if that had something to do with it though. Alright, so what is the function of the torsion and can I free it up? I did manage to get the steering knuckle back on with some finagling and some help from the wife, but I'm ready to move on to the passenger side now, and it would be nice if I could get it that upper control arm to move.

 

[Bitter]

The torsion bar is the spring for the suspension, a bar instead of a coil spring.

 

[T1000000]

Oh wow, OK, I just watched some videos, I get it now, I thought that was just for stabilization. OK so I don't want to mess with the adjustment of that. Whatever, easy enough to just drop the shocks down to make room for the knuckle. Thanks for the help yall!

 

[punk_and_goth]

I normal use a nice 4ft pry bar to lift up and have my apprentice/ shadow to remove the one and place the new

Otherwise I'll spend a hour or more undoing the torsion bolts to lower them then the process to lift back up is long and annoying gotta put the wheel back and and measure over and over till both wheels are even ( it's a bitch on my truck ONLY ONCE AND ONLY ONCE)