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Stuck torsion bar

O

OrionThade

Member
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Location
Orem, Utah
Hey all,

So I'm in the process of replacing the entire front end steering and suspension. So far everything has gone fairly smoothly. I've only run into one snag that I'm not sure how to fix.

The driver side torsion bar is rusted into the key. I had much the same problem with the passenger side, but was able to force it loose by placing a bottle jack beween the tranny crossmember and the torsion bar cross member. No such luck on the the driver side.

I don't have an acetelyne or oxy-propane torch, just a regular propane that I have used to heat the key up. I've read that the torsion bars don't like a lot of heat, so I have been careful to localize the heat as much as I can.

Still no go.

My next thought is the place a solid round object in the key window in the cross member and give it a few solid whacks with a dead blow hammer. Other than than, does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks a bunch.
 
What about Soaking it down in PB Blaster, or is it too far gone for that?

I've also just Heard about stuff called "Kroil" that is supposed to Blow PB out of the Water in Terms of Freeing Up Rusted things.
 
Candle wax trick. Heat the surrounding key real good, push some wax into the end, get a brass drift and a 5 pound hammer and go to it.

It's hard to transfer the kind of heat needed to hurt a torsion, especially on the beefy ends.
 
Good information guys, I appreciate it. The Acetone-ATF idea is very interesting. I have a bunch of acetone and might just have some ATF. I'll have to check.

I think at this point, I'm going to do what I can to get the ball joint and bushings out with the control arm where it is. It happens that the neck of the same bottle jack I have been using is exactly the right size to push these bushings out, so I don't have to do anything fancy there.

What i may do is make up a mixture and start spraying it down every few days. I'm planning to put a lift kit on, so I'll need to get that torsion bar out at that point.

Thanks again.
 
After the oil and acetone bath I have found tap dancing on frozen slip joints with a air hammer to work well. Put a blunt ended tool in it and hammer away trying to evenly push the key off. The shocks of the hammering is supposed to break up the rust crystals.
 
i put re-indexed keys in mine and had a heck of a time doing it. ended up having to cut the driver side key in half with a cuting wheel most the way through and then using a chisle to break it. that thing was very rusted
 
I ended up leaving the driver side torsion bar alone. I had spent too much time on it as it was and I could do everything i needed with where it was. The tension was out of it so I could disconnect the control arm, press the bushings out using a floor jack and put the control arm back. The most difficult part was drilling out the ball joint rivets, but that wasn't too hard, really.

I had to put the project on hold last week as I was on the East Coast for work. I have a pretty busy week this next week as well, so I might not actually get to button this one up until next week.

I'm still going to do the acetone and ATF trick, though. I'm planning to put a lift on this either later this year or in the spring, so that torsion bar will have to come out then.
 
Just as a follow-up ... I ended up not getting the torsion bar out. I was able to get all the work done, including pressing out the old bushings and putting the new poly's in, without too much trouble. I'll worry about the torsion bar issue if/when I lift the truck.
 
Im aware this thread is old ...but,I found and this was after a week of heat hammer PB ect....if you pull that cross member the key comes of when you pull it
 
Been there and failed on that. I tried to pull the torsion bars on my son's '94 to do the lower A arm bushings. Also tried to remove A arms to do a swap to the forged units from the '99 models. Tried everything including soaking with ATF & Acetone for a week, then heat. No go. I ended up pulling the entire unit, that's the crossmember with bars and A-arms attached. Popped the bushings with a bottle Jack and chain. Not a fun job, but you only do it once.
 
I'm trying to remember back to when I did this job. Would it be possible to simply drop the lower A Arms and pop the bushings out without removing the A Arms from the torsion bars > remove them while everything is still in the truck?

I'm headed towards converting my '99 Suburban to the GMT-800 Jumbo Brakes and I'm considering doing the lower A Arm bushings while I'm in there doing all this work. The upper A Arm bushings were already replaced about 60K miles ago, but the lowers are original and have 210K miles on them and have aging cracks.
 
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