So, the swivel nut for the torsion bar, has anyone else had a problem with it moving around?
The truck is in the air, trying to loosen the torsion bar adjustment bolt, but the darn swivel nut keeps rotating with it (it won't stay in its groove in the crossmember)

 

Wow, is the crossmember bent? cause thats not supposed to happen! Do you have some scrap metal laying around that you could weld on either side of the nut to "re-create" the groove?

 

No, the groove is there. I guess it's not staying in the groove because there is no weight on the front suspension to keep downward force on the torsion bar? (There is nothing connected to the lower control arm, so the LCA is lying there)
I'll put some of my ideas to the test tomorrow, and see if putting some counterbalace helps.
If needed, I guess I'll weld something in there. That's kind of what I was thinking.

 

LOL, I didn't realize there was no weight at all on it. Yeah, I completely understand now why it would spin like that. Even if you have the truck together and up on jack stands, there is still a huge preload on the bar that would force the nut down, but that preload is no longer there in your case. Have you tried holding the nut with a large set of vise grips?

 

No, haven't tried that. I'll try different things tomorrow.
I've tried being super lazy, thinking about working on it one day, and just looking at it. But, none of those has helped me make any progress, haha.

On a positive note, I ordered a new-to-me lower and upper control arms. I just need to install the new ball joints and paint them. (Going with flat-black on everything I can easily get to on the front end)

 

i would use a large pipe wrench for a temp way to hold it. or spot weld the nut in the groove

 

Spraying some penetrating oil on the exposed threads and brushing any crud off of it might help too in loosening it when you do figure out the best way to hold the nut.

 

I would say the simplest is just get vicegrips and clamp on it. And use a impact wrench. When useing an impact you don't need to much to hold on to the nut.

 

Well, placed a jack under the lower control arm, jacked it up to put a load on it, and it worked great. Torsion bar adjustment bolt came right out.
Unfortunately, the rear mount bolt for the LCA is unable to clear the front axle (the head hits the flange where the CV joint bolts up to). So, I have to rent the ball joint press from AutoZone to press in/out the ball joint (instead of using my hydraulic press).

 

The ball joint press is $130.00 It's worth it. Easy job with it!