Sagging drivers side in the rear

[skender]

Ok I've owned my 96 XLT V8 for about two years now. About a year ago I noticed a slight in the rear drivers side. Looking around under there I realized that who ever laid out the underside of this otherwise well rounded vehicle had his head up his sagging rear end. The tank the the battery two extremely heavy objects are all on the driverside... no to mention me the driver. My shocks were going so I thought a full tank and crappy shocks was the culprit. Well I got me some new pirelli scorpions and a new set of monroe reflex shocks. They made a world of difference in terms of handling and I highly reccomend them both for general road driving. Back to my rear.. (please no laughing) After all of that my rear still sagged toward the driverside. I called ford and they reminded me about the swaybar links recall. Links look good. She handles very well. When I used my tape measure and measured from the floor to the top of the fender just over the wheel I learned that my whole drivers side was approximately .5 inches lover than the passenger side. I've inspected the leafs and aside from some muck and rust nothing appears to be cracked or damaged in any way. My dealer wants me to bring it in to have a look at it. In searching the site to arm myself with some info, I managed to find some poor soul who had the same problem on his 97 XLT. It seems when he took it back in to ford all they really did was max out the poor guys drivers side torsion bar and Voila the sag is gone. It sounds great.. great but it the right thing to do? I suppose with all that weight on oneside of the vehicle it simply settled over time. I remember reading hear that after a torsion twists you need to roll over a few curbs to let the front end settle into its final height. I suppose my questions are really as follows:

1) is this normal?

2)Could my drivers side leafs be shot.

3) Is it safe to do a half a torsion twist. (Will it really raise up my rear)

 

[skender]

testing

 

[93 & 96 EB & XLT]

Hey. I believe that there is only torsion bars up front. I checked on my wifes explorer. The back seems to be leafs. Maybe you could add a leaf on the drivers back side?

 

[leebo]

I'd like to take this time to welcome you both to the site. I can see you've jumped right in and can see that any info can be found all right here.

As for the sag.....Ford cheap and easy fix is to mess with the toursion bars. By lowering the front passanger, the rear driver will raise. By lessing the weight on the rear with the front spring rate, it will cause it to raise up a bit. Ford often does this and may do this for free. It will take them about 5 minutes tops. When you take it in for the recall let them fix that too.

 

[go off road]

If its only off a half inch its normall up 3/4, But you can try a set of add-a-leafs that will fix your rear end sag.

 

[Carver]

Most local alignment or suspension places can remove your rear spring and re-arch it along with adjusting your front torsion bar.

I just had my rear springs re-arched and an extra leaf added to both sides along with the full twist up front and raised the front about 1 3/4" and the back about 2 1/2". I have 114,000 miles and have never touched the suspension and the drivers side was about 3/4" lower.

It now has a slight rack but looks a lot better. All that with alignment cost me $340. If I had removed the springs and put them back on myself, I could ahve saved $150. However, if they were not balanced, I would have had to keep doing it until they were right. My time is worth more than that.

 

[skender]

I almost got it

Well Last night I jacked my explorer up and crawled under there with a 13MM socket and some liquid wrench. I began lowering the passeneger side front when I realized that the driveres side front droppped slightly as I did that. Then I started raising the drivers side. In the end I had reversed the positions of the torsion adjusting screws. The passenger side is twisted way down and the driver side is twisted up. At any rate I manged to get all the front with 3/16th of an in and The rear is almost exactly the same. I'm going to drive her today and see if she settles some. I'll tell ya it was a pain because I had to raise and lower the truck about 10 times. Thanks for all your advice everyone

 

[CougarX]

Hey, did this ever fix the problem. I noticed mine was about .5-.75" lower on the drivers side also. I have a bumper to bumper warranty but it's a $100 deductable everytime it goes in so if I can do it easy enough I will. Thanks.

 

[skender]

Sagging rear

It fixed the problem but it bothered me that I had to unevenly twist up my torsion bars in the front. What also bothered me was that I was lowering it overall.

I ended up sinking $60 on a set of Warrior Shackles and $120 on Hellwig progressive rate leaf spring helpers and doing a tist up in the front. Shackles alone gave me 1.75 " of lift in the rear and an even TT gave me one and 1.25 in the front. I noticed that the TT put more load in the rear and my actual lift after the TT was 1.5. This alone did nothing for the sag. The leaf helpers are adjustable and when I put them on I got back the .25 "I lost after the TT. I them adjusted the drivers side leaf helper for the sag on the drivers side. I now have drivers side and passenger side within 1/8 of an inch of each other. Measuring from level ground to the top most part of the fender wall. I have approximately 34.25 " of clearance all around.

The ride is more solid and I am pleased. It was worth the $180. I got a nice lift, increased the load capacity, and got rid of the sag. Next up.... Hellwig Sway bars!!!

 

[MikeTEC]

Skender: I know this is an old post but I have a 96 V-8 also and am thinking about the Hellwig progessive helper springs to help with rear sag when I have my trailer hooked up. Basicly, I need to know is your ride qualilty with the Hellwig helpers "harsh" when loaded or unloaded? Sure appreciate your comments. Thanks. Mike