on my toyota the rubber stopers on my suspension seem to close to bottoming out whe on leval ground i cant even fit my fingers through and on my friends 89 there is way more space between the stoper

 

If you are talking about the rear end I'd say you springs are shot and the shocks are probably gone too... if it's the front end I'd say it was the shocks blown out, if it was the torsion bars you'd flat on the stops...
How much weight are you hauling around usually anyway? Consider having the spring shop add an extra leaf or two to the pack if you get the rears redone... I just had mine done and since I tend to run at max load a lot of the time my mech. and I decided to add double overloaders to the rear pack...

 

yeah its on the front and i already replaced the shocks i thought maybe my torsion bars were out of spec and i dont know what the spec is

 

http://www.off-road.com/trucks4x4/ar....jsp?id=398514

 

If you did the shocks then I'd say the torsion bars may have gone out of spec...
go into the general tech sub forum and pull the first sticky for the FSMs
the 93 pickup FSM in ncttora link will have the answers about spec settings for the t bars but I would have a professional mess with them...
the preload on them will hurt you severely if something slips while you're messing with them... that and the suspension is part of the steering control... if something came loose later you could go out of control and do a lot of damage... if that happened your ins. would probably be invalidated if they found out you messed with it unless you're a licensed mech...

edit: looking at 4crawlwer link it may be simpler then I thought, though I'd still let a pro mess with it, if you do tackle it yourself pay attention to the cautions about cranking them too high CVs are expensive lol

 

after adjusting the torsion bar should i have it realigned.

 

yes, you should definitely have it realigned every time you adjust the suspension geometry.

 

Asjusting the torsion bars will require an alignment unless you like buying new tires frequently.

 

Well... you know everyone needs a hobby...

 

Very true, but not everyone has the money to support a hobby such as tire buying

 

The shocks have nothing to do with the "lift height".
You can remove the shocks completely and the vehicle will not sit lower
to the ground.




Fred

 

You're right... I was thinking about the newer tacos with the coil over shock front ends... as for the rears I know I gained 1" of "lift" when I replaced my blown shocks for new Rancho 5000s (of course it was not a "gain" just a restoration of normal conditions lol)...

 

I don't believe that changing your shocks did anything for your ride height.
You're saying that if you remove your shocks your truck sits 1" lower ?
Those shocks provide no lift at all.

Think about it for a second or two. How much force does it take to lift the rear of your truck 1". Go put a jack under the frame then jack it up and take a wild guess. If the shocks lifted the truck 1" then it would be almost impossible to compress them by hand enough to install them.




Fred

 

If you read Rancho's own literature they claim a "lift" of 0-1" from installing them and so far as compressing a truck shock by hand... all the install guides I've ever seen recommend leaving the shipping strap on the shock to hold it in a semi-compressed state until after the install is complete to prevent injury (among other things).

 

Suggest you read it again, this time slowly.
It says for lifts of 0" ~ 1".
You can easily compress those by hand, no problem at all.




Fred

 

Well this is the "Newbie Tech Section".

 

Yes sir, that's a big 10-4 'ole buddy




Fred

 

I ain't no noob... I just misread the label mm'kay?
and for the record my old 87 did ride about an 1" higher when I replaced the blown and leaking OEs for ranchos so what's up with that IDK lol...
and I have'nt done that much suspension work either lol but keeping everything strapped down until installed is a good way to prevent pinched fingers and things falling off jacks/stands as you're heaving away trying to install things is all.
Some shocks are easily compressible others not so much I was not speaking about the 5000s specifically in that statement FWIW.
Furthermore I recall an article from (Peterson's4wd? FourWheeler?) years ago about installing shocks and they also recommended using a cargo strap/come-a-long to control the compression of the shock to ease the installation if the factory strap was broken or needed to be set to a different compression level for the install.

 

I think gas chanrged shocks are the only shocks that you would ever have an issue with, but I don't see the need for a come-along to install them lol. A little upper body strength has always worked for me. Your suspension must have been EXTREMELY worn out if you got a 1" lift out of a gas shock upgrade. I'd suggest replacing your coils/leafs if that was the case.

 

lol the springs were pretty baffed at the time... I had them done 2-3 paychecks later... as for the upper body strength I find that if I'm using two hands to compress the shock, one hand to hold the mounting bolt/nut/262 thread locker and one hand to work the socket wrench I seem to run out of hands
while if I use a come along strap I have a hand to spare and also less chance of skinned knuckles lol...