New 2500 Leans in the Rear

[RVGuy]

Something caught my attention today that made me measure the rear of my new truck. And sure enough, the drivers side is one inch closer to the ground as measured to the bumper.

I've not made any other checks, nor have I crawled under the truck to see if anything is eskew.

Anyone else run into this and/or is there something that needs adjustment?

[Silver Bullet]

Did you have a full tank-o-fuel? I noticed mine is about 1/2" lower on the DS with 3/4 of a tank. I'll measure again when closer to empty.

[Kennedy]

The LH front tends to be 1-1.5" lower than the RH front. This causes the RH rear to rise creating what you describe...

On edit: Use frame points for reference to eliminate inconsistencies in body and trim.

[ 07-23-2002: Message edited by: kennedy ]</p>

[SoCalDMAX]

OH MY GAWD!!! You broke it ALREADY???

J/K. ;) It seems they all come 1/2" to 1" lower on the DS. I think the torsion bar keys were indexed wrong when cast. Do a search for "torsion bar", lots of discussion on it.

It only takes an 18mm socket and breaker bar to crank it up. Measure from same point of the frame and drive it after to ensure suspension has reached equilibrium.

Regards, Steve

[JimWilson]

Ah, the typical "Silverado Slope" has got you, does it? Relax, it's got just about all of us. The fix is simple, thankfully.

Jack up the drivers side of the truck, so the front tire is off the ground. Locate the torsion bar on the lower portion of the front suspension. It's easy to spot; it's a long, black bar that runs from the front of the truck to about the drivers door, parallel to the frame. There's one for each side. Where that bar mounts to the frame, under the door, there is a crossmember, and on this crossmember is an 18mm bolt (hey GM, why metric and not standard?). Tighten that 2 full turns, let the truck down off the jack and go take it out for a short ride. Then, find some level ground and measure again (but take your measurement on a frame piece, and not body trim). Repeat as necessary to get it to where it should be. BTW; you can use this same trick to level out the front of the truck, so it doesn't look like you're trying to bury the nose of the truck into the ground (of course, that assumes yours is setup like just about all the rest of them -- nose down and butt in the air smile.gif ).

[Kennedy]

I should add: I pointed this out to the dealer, and said I would like to adjust the front to sit the way I wanted (Up) but then would like GM to cover alignment as if it were adjusted up that 1"+ it should really be aligned.

I had NO problem here except that the dealer's rack was too short for my "land yacht" as SoMn calls it so he had to sub out the job. The other key here is that a guy should wait till 5-6k on the odometer so any settling can work out.

Beauty of the whole deal ia that I got to take it to Wausau Spring (first choice in alignments) GM covered the alignment, and while I was there, I had them add a leaf and arch up the rears a bit...

[RVGuy]

I posted this problem a couple days ago and have since done the following:

I measured to frame point in both front and rear of the truck. The rear is a full inch lower on the driver's side than the passenger side. The front was 3/4 of an inch lower on the driver's side.

So, I put three turns on the driver's side torsion bar and it brought it up about 1/2 inch. The rear remained the same...no change.

The more I look at it, the more it looks like the whole rear of the truck (from the cab back) is torqued/twisted.

I'm prepared to take the truck back to the dealer but before I do, I'd like to ask a few of you to measure how much a full tank of gas affects the height of the rear of the truck. And also whether anyone (other than myself) has a truck where the rear is consistantly 1 inch lower on the driver's side.

Thanks in advance for any replys.

[ 07-29-2002: Message edited by: RVGuy ]</p>