well the way I see it is there are many many people who have lifted their trucks this way, and many who have no ill effects from it, so I guess I will just take my chances. I may be wrong but dont see why this would cause more wear on ball joints bearings tires and shocks? If it is aligned properly there should be no ill effects. just my .02

 

The T-Bar crank is fine and as long as you don't over do it you wont put, hardly any, undue stress on the front end components. Now if you crank more than 5 complete turns then you are likely to put your CV axles at a bad angle.There are pics on here of CV axles at good and bad angles if you are worried about them. Like was already said, you need to tell the Front End Mechanic that you want it raised and to line it up accordingly.

 

right when i had if fixed last I told them what I had done we went out and looked at the angles of the cv shafts and they said they were fine when i brought it agine to get align and hav some other stuff done we talked about the torsion bar lift and about the 6in lift to come. and you say that guys have does this with no effects when i did my front end looked like this \ / and just from driving like that for about a month it wore my tiers wrong. And my shocks were toped out so i needed to get new shocks. You cant just turn the bolt 5 turns one side of my truck was a little higher than the other so i did 6 on 1 and the other was cranked all the way in and it was exactly 2in's of lift. every truck is diff

 

yes every truck is different, but the one thing they all have in common is when you crank it to level YOU MUST ALIGN THE FRONT END!!! If you don't tell the mechanic to leave it they will lower it back. if you dont align it you WILL wear your tires!!

 

I don't buy that the mechanic was doing "what he was supposed to". What if you bought the leveling keys and leveled it that way? Was he gonna remove them and put stock keys back in? NO!!!

He had no business lowering the front end because he was too lazy to adjust the toe in, camber, etc.

If'n it were me, I'd call and bitch!!!

 

thanks Hammer, I thought it was wrong, was waiting for you to chime in

 

Hammer, It would have been bit more obvious that the keys were intentionally there and also with the keys in you wouldn't have been able to get it to factory spec safetly anyways. The alignment software in alot of cases has no specs for modified suspensions so you have throw specs out almost completely and go by experience. If the person doesn't have the experience, They do it by the book to cover there butts, This means putting everything bactor Factory specified Specs.

I think in this case while the mechanic should have used his judgement and talked to the owner first when he realized the Height was than an inch out of spec. But don't really fault the mechanic either. I still think the owner was more at fault and as a mechanic and shop manager myself I probably would have given the money back and told him to go elsewhere, If anything just because we didn't have the new spec for the lifted vehicle and don't want the liability.

In fact up until recently, For liability reasons, We have been telling people with modified suspensions that they need to go elsewhere, This went double for folks who had cranked there T-bars.

Last month we updated our software to the latest hunter and can now input the drop amount or lift amount and can adjust for it. I can tell you for a fact that ALOT changes when you lift or drop a vehicle even 1". In some cases we still won't touch some lifted or leveled vehicles with a 100ft pole.

 

I guess if you have plenty of business then it is ok to turn away the challenging ones and just do the easy factory spec jobs. It is not so much liability as it is customer service, just my opinion!

 

Oh, I won't dispute you on the fact that raising the vehicle just a little changes a lot and DOES without a doubt put more strain on front end components. It's all a balancing act, you can get away enough to get most of the rake look without too much issue.

Any idiot can't tell that the bolts were cranked intentionally for a desired effect needs to be pouring Slurpies at the nearest Quickie-Mart for minimum wage.

He either needed to align the truck as is or refuse to do the job. I'm sure the nearest 4 Wheel Parts or specialty truck shop would have loved to have taken the job and performed a proper alignment so he could drive his truck safely.

No different than a guy with a modified engine, if the dude at the local shop or dealership can't work on it properly/safely, then he needs to just refuse the job...

 

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that lifting the truck or cranking the T-bars is a bad thing. The bars on my truck are cranked about 2 and half inches. I am just saying that if you put it back to what the machine says is spec with out dropping it to factory height it is still not aligned properly.

Now if we can't align it properly, Would you say we are doing you a service or disservice by turning you away rather taking you money and doing a toe and go?

Plus if your tires wear out, your cv's snap, joints pop, something like that goes wrong and a mechaninc say "Your alignment was off and that was a major cause" Whos the next person you will talk to ? Plus, I have seen some really crappy lifts come in looking for an alignment.
One guy had 2x4's on the top of his springs to lift it. Saw one a while back, the guy had taken a torch to his springs and cut them to drop it, Didn't even get them cut level not to mention the heat basically ruins the springs.

Saw another guy came in about a week ago, He wanted his car "slammed" but couldn't afford it. He took the springs and shocks completely out and put 4 cheap air bags that were designed for the rear of trucks and blew them up just enough so that the body was about 4 inches off the ground. Now he had issues, He cussed me up one way and down the other when I told him we wouldn't even get near his car.

There is updated software that alot of alignment shops still don't have and cannot properly align modified suspensions, Yet they still do. To me this is a complete disservice. Recently we got this software, however, we still turn away alot of lifted and dropped vehicles and tell them they should be going to a specialty shop.

And Hammer, You would be surprised how many trucks come in that the owner doesn't even know there truck isn't factory height. Good portion of those are t-bar cranks. Also there are alot of people who crank there bars thinking that there truck is sagging. Even seen a few who thought truck was sagging and didn't bother to check there tires.

SMK, we get ALOT of bussiness. On an average day we get as much as 3hour plus wait even just for the small things like quick inspections. In fact we are looking at building a larger shop soon. And yes we do turn away 5 or 6 vehicles a month for various reasons. We always respectfully tell them why and what would have to be done to fix the issue. We usually find that other shops had turned them away in the past.