I have a 96 Explorer Sport with the Butt Sag and driver's side lean. Last weekend, I replaced rear shocks, front struts, upper control arems on both sides, and rear monoleafs with a multi leaf set from a 2001 4-door Explorer. The new springs have three bundles leaves and on helper leaf.

The butt sag is vastly improved but is still there to a much lesser degree. I still have a slight lean to the driver's side. Difference measure to be about 3/4". I realize that this is a 10 year old vehicle and it has oer 150K miles so I should expect some problems. That said, it drives me nuts to look at it. (I know - so stop looking at it.)

I searched this Forum for the subject and I was not able to find a good solution to this problem. Best solution appears to be adding another leaf to the Spring. Has anybody been able to get this problem corrected???

 

yes I have, get the front-end aligned and front torsion bars adjusted. it will balance it out. As the front drivers side is raised (equal to the front pass side)it will lower the rear passenger side thus leveling the rear.
It cost me 49.00 for the alignment and 20 in labor for the torsion bar adjustment.

 

Your reasoning is sound and if you've been thorugh this, I'm inclined to go with your suggestion.

I took it to a Mazda dealer on Thursday to have the Front End aligned and to have the lean corrected. They wanted to replace the new heavier springs I pulled off of a 2001 4-door Explorer with brand new mono-leafs for $725.00, then they wanted align it. They did not want to do the alignment without changing the springs or having me add a lift kit or shim the rear springs somehow. This seemed to me to be an attempt at addressing the symptoms of a problem without addressing the problem itself.

If I understand what you are saying, you believe the problem is in the torsion bar up front and good alignment and leveling of the froint end will correct the problem?

I did noice that the lower control arm/Bottom A-frame appears to be more "horizontal" than the one on the passenger side whcih indicates to me that the front driver's side is sagging as well. This would of course fit with your theory. Looks like maybe the Mazda guys weren't necessarily the best and brightest techs available.

I'm going to try the front end alignment tomorrow.

Any others had this problem and did you try adjusting the torsion bars to correct it??

Thanks

 

According to the factory service manual, the first step in any front end alignment is to set the vehicle ride height. This is not measured at the bumper, but rather at a certain point on the lower A-arm. Getting the ride height correct makes the camber/caster adjustments accurate.

The ride height is adjusted by turning the bolt that pre-loads the torsion bar cam. This bolt is underneath the protective plate at the rear of the torsion bars. (Actually, you can reach the bolt without removing the plate, but it is easier to understand if you remove the 4 bolts and have a look, at least the first time).

You must unload the suspension to be able to turn this bolt. Jack up the vehicle from under the frame or front crossmember so that there is no weight on the wheels and the suspension hangs freely.

To raise up the vehicle 3/4 inch on one side, try tightening the torsion bar adjuster bolt on that side about 2 turns. You will need a 6 point socket and a breaker bar as the bolts were secured with Loktite at the factory. Tighten the left-side bolt about 2 turns (keep track), then take it down off the jackstands and have a look. Bounce the suspension a couple of times to make sure it settles fully.

You might consider replacing the torsion bar adjuster cam(s). On the top of the cam is a Kevlar pad. This pad wears out over time, causing the truck to settle and creating a metal-on-metal situation with attendant rattles and squeaks. You can compensate for the settling by cranking in the adjuster bolt, but you will still have the rattles and squeaks. I would bet your left side settling is due to wear in the pad, not to the torsion bar taking a set.

There's no way I would pay a dealer $700 to swap the rear springs back out. They may protest that they won't work on a non-stock truck, but the rear springs have little to do with ride height on the front.

 

a regular alignment/tire shop will fix it for you for around $100.00. My Ex had 100k mile on it 98% of which was with a 200+lb driver only. This caused the drivers side to lean almost an inch.
I added some 31/10.5/15 tires and a rear shackle lift of 1.1/4" so i need the front torsions cranked to level front to back at which point the lean was pointed out to me by the mechanic, he explained the lifting one corner has a cross effect to the opposite corner, when he was done it was perfect and it didn't seem to be to much of an unusal job for the shop.
Just find a shop that dosnt go "huh" when you tell them what you want.

 

Thanks for the reply guys. This actually seems to be the best and most informative thread I've seen on this issue. I confident that I will get this corrected on Monday.

I left first thing this morning armed with Yield2s's comments from late last night. Dealer service writer had a deer in the headlights look. Not Good. All he would say is that he never had any in there to correct this problem. Quickly became clear that this was not going to be where I was going to get this fixed.

Off to my next hope. A local "high-end" Goodyear dealer that does a lot of work for folks besides tires. They brought out their "expert" because this was getting "technical". He was a young guy and kept harping on having to get it up on the rack to see what was going on (not sure why since you can plainly see the problem with the vehicle sitting on the ground) and that he wouild need it all day. He then began insiting that the springs from the 4-door Explorer were probably bad and this is probably what had everything screwed up. I couldn't get this guy to understand that the problem predated the SWprings by aqbout three or four years and that the springs were replaced to correct a sag problem. I explained that springs from a 4-door chosen because the Sport/2-door Explorer monoleafs always sag and 4-door springs tend not to have this problem. No penetration. I also explained that the sag was now gone but I still had a lean to the driver's side that I belieed to be unrealted to the rear spring sag. He was wondering why I dindn't have the original mono's rear arc'd. Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Anyway, it was clear he had never done one of these before and since I was not going to be his first, it was time to move on.

I did find a shop down the road that was actually closed today but while I was checking the hours on the window, one of the guys pulled in to get something out of his toolbox in the shop. I explained to him what I had done and what the problem was. He said they had done a few Explorer's with this problem and then proceeded to recite Yield2s's solution to the problem to me almost verbatem. He said that they had been able to fix all of them. He also stated that probably half of all of the Explorers he sees in the shop have this lean problem. He did say that they have had to replace torsion bars on a couple of them. I will be in to see these guys on Monday.

Bottom line - I'm feeling pretty good about my chances for getting this problem resolved on Monday. Thanks to both of you for your knowledge and expertise.

BTW - To anyone else with the rear sag problem with the Sports. The multi-leaf rear springs from a 4-door will bolt right in. No modifications required. I have a 96 2-door sport 4WD and the donor for my springs was a 2001 4-door, no idea if it was a 2WD or 4WD. Do't thin it really matters much. It definitley fixed the sag problem and the ride is better than before. Can't wait to get it aligned and have the lean fixed. Should ride even better. I will report back on Monday to let everyone know how the lean correction turned out.

Thanks again guys. I really do appreciate the help.

 

Fefarms,

Thank you for your very detailed reply. It confirms what yield2s had to say but with the directions on how to do this myself. Thanks again.

I think however, that I will take the cowards route and let someone who's done this before take on the job of getting the ride height correct. I appreciate the suggestion on the Kevlar pad as well. Guess I will see what condition it is in on Monday. For now though, the front end is not noisy, it's just unbalanced.

Thanks again.

 

Took it in Monday and the Driver's side lean is now gone. First thing they did was set the ride height by adjusting the torsion bars as the both of you said. They actually dropped the passenger side to get the ride height corrected which also raise the rear driver's side. This also corrected the illusion of a slight butt sag that rmained after the spring changeout. It sits great now.

Thanks again yield2s and fefarms. I really appreciate your input. This problem has been driving me nuts for years and it was that simple and cheap (less than $65.00) to get corrected.