I have a 2000 Ranger with 112,000 miles. My truck has OEM # 1 bars that have never been cranked.

My question is, should I get new # 1 bars because that's to many miles on the stock torsion bars regardless if they've never been cranked. OR, the stock # 1 bars are fine if they have never been cranked.

 

I would give them a shot first, cranking them i mean... worst case they will just sag, then if thats the case you can find some new ones..

 

crank them on up

 

Do you need an alignment after cranking?

 

depends how much you crank them

 

So, as the bars begin to sag then you need then you need to keep re-aligning?

 

or keep cranking back to the ride-height where you had the alignment done ...

Measure the height between the LCA Pivot bolt and the edge of the steering knuckle <-- that'll get you to a good measurement of the angle on the LCA which directly relates to the opreating angle of the LCA as a result of the torsion bar loading.

If you think you've sagged, go back and re-check that height difference (reseting that value to where you were aligned should get you happy again -- of course, you've prolly knocked the alignment out on something else, but it'll addess the 'sag' portion ...

 

Sticky: torsion bar cranking lots of information on tbar cranking can be found here

 

how do you suppose he will be able to keep cranking the torsion bars up everytime they sag? the bar itself sags...not the bolts loosening off. there may not be any adjustment left

 

Tightening the bolt adds torsion, restoring the torsion it had 60k miles ago