94 Bighorn front suspension sag

[jafaandproud]

I have noticed my LWB 94 Bighorn bottoms out a lot more off-roading than it used to so I did a measure up against another one and found mine has sagged about 1.5 inches in the front. It feels the same to drive on the road as it always has, and all the suspension is factory. Both front corners sit at the same height.

It definitely used to sit normally. It does have a hard life off-road though.

Just wondering what it might be? I have had a good look around under there today, nothing seems to be out of shape. I've taken the shocks out and they are quite old, but I'm thinking it's more than likely something with the torsion bars. I don't want to wind them up in case something else is the issue.

Any ideas?

[geeves]

Unless somethings actually broken the choices are either adjust the torrsion bars or the tyre pressures. Only other option is that your mate has upgraded his tyres when you wernt looking
Can you supply the measurement for ground to top of the guard and also the centre of the hub to the top of the guard. Also what size tyres are you running.
1.5 inches or 75mm is a lot

[geeves]

other question for a well used ubs69. Do you have any problems with the rear trailing arms getting bent?

[jafaandproud]

I'll go measure it now. You can see it's sitting lower in the front now, his sits the same height in the rear as mine (measured that as well), measured from center of hub to guard when we checked it. Tyre pressures are all normal, yea it seems to have dropped a lot

And nope I haven't had an issue with trailing arms (yet). The old girl gets a hard life on the rocky and/or rutted trails around these parts

[jafaandproud]

Front:
Ground to guard = 83cm
Hub center to guard = 47cm

Rear:
Ground to guard = 86cm
Hub center to guard = 50cm

[geeves]

the measurement from hub to guard is tyre independant Mine measures 48 so not that different although mine is standard hight. If there was a breakage I would expect both sides to be different although the sway bar can affect this.
Disconect the sway bar and readjust. Have a look for broken bits at the same time. Reconect the sway bar afterwards if you wish.
Those allow steps are holding out well on rocky trails

[jafaandproud]

I found this (image below) and measured up, it was sitting about 29mm low from these measurements. I have just been out and wound up the torsion bars, the bolts were very easy to turn with a breaker bar and didn't even need cracking which surprised me. So it's back up to normal, I'll have to keep an eye on it to make sure it stays up. It seems very weird. I'm starting to wonder if my mechanic played with them for no apparent reason without saying.

And the side steps have been bashed up quite a bit, but I'd much rather the step than the sill, so I just use them as a "ok that was a good bash, avoid that" kind of thing

[geeves]

You should check your wheel alignment and also mark the adjusting bolts so you can see if they are turning. They are normaly quite tight to turn

[jafaandproud]

I had a wheel alignment recently after replacing my tie rod ends and a few other bits and pieces. I am starting to think they wound it down during the wheel alignment, hence why I was suddenly noticing it was lower and both sides were even. Also might explain why the adjusters were easy to turn if they had been done recently as well.

I can't work out why they would lower it below standard, but that's the only logic I can come up with...

[geeves]

"I had a wheel alignment recently after replacing my tie rod ends and a few other bits and pieces. I am starting to think they wound it down during the wheel alignment"
Ive heard of that happening before. 2 possible reasons 1 they ran out of camber adjustment so adjusted down to suit or the more common reason was they adjusted the hight to get the camber correct rather than playing with shims.
Now the tricky bit. Unless it was done in the last couple of weeks you are going to have a devil of a job getting an honest answer out of them or getting them to redo it for free which is what you really want honest answer or not.
It is however a good time to do a ball joint flip before the alignment then you can tweak it up to 50mm lift or so then new rear springs when you can.