So I have seen the "How To" section from two sites that show torsion bar adjustment. Both have pictures and looks easy.

I get underneath the X driver side, ok, everything looks easy. Go to the passenger side, very different from the photos on the sites I've seen. First, in front of the adjuster nut is a metal upside down "Y" that blocks access to the nut. Now I can try it from the back, but there is very little room to turn the wrench because the exhaust pipe is real close. No room to get a good crank.

I again went to the 2 sites that always get posted for this, and the photos show a clear shot to the adjuster nut. Nothing in the way.

Any 02 or 03 guys that raised the front of your X, did you have a hard time getting a wrench in on the passenger side?

You have to get to it from the back. I have plenty of room to work with from there.

I remember it being a little tighter than the drivers side.. but i didnt have any trouble getting at it... make sure you wait till the X is cold though.. and just be patient while under there.

I was under there messing with mine a few weeks ago, the passenger side (on my 2000) was pretty tight. Not too bad though, certainly do-able. Fortunately you don't have to spend much time with it. Just break the lock nut loose, crank away, then you can spin the nut back down by hand on the newly-exposed threads and just have to get a wrench back in there to cinch it down.

Brent

i have a 2003.
i had new torsion bars installed (by another xterra member), and i have since re-adjusted them once myself.
as far as i can tell, there is no obstruction. maybe you could take a picture?
do you mean there is a metal thread going through the bolt, right above the locking nut?

Automatics have the "Y" shaped bracket, 5-speeds don't.

why would transmission affect the part involved in adjusting the torsion bar?

Its just a part that gets in the way of the front access area of the adjuster torsion nut. From the rear it can be done, just not as much room to get to it. I finally got it loose, I just posted this initially because the pix I had seen never had this "Y".

Is there a need to get a realignmnet if the bars are adjusted? I installed a waag brush guard which added a few pounds to the front and would like to sneak it back up a bit.

my alignment was fine after the t-bar adjustment. it wasn't until the new control arms that i needed a realignment (quite badly i might add).

The need for an alignment varies with how much you crank and where your alignment fell within the spec before you started. Just do it.

Brent

I would be curious to know about those that Tbar raised, what "frame height" they are currently.

I can't post a picture, but before tweaking, I measured from the bottom of the frame right in the area of where the front clip of the step rail is. Where the frame starts to turn a little inside.

From the bottom of the frame driver side was just under 14", passenger was just over 13". I cranked it a few turns to even out.

Today I got the X back from a shop that installed the Calmini AALs and he went as far as to tweak them again to get rid of the rake.

When I first saw the X, I thought "Damn its sitting high" and when I got in I was kind of worried he raised the Tbars too much. I got home and measured both sides. They are just about 15" on both sides. So he only took them up 1 inch.

Truck drove a little more bumpy but it drove straight, no pulling.

With a 3" lift and 32" tires, mine measures 16" to the frame, so I would say yours is well beyond the spec. Start saving money, because your steering will be toast in just a few months.

How much room between the upper control arm and bumpstop ? I'm guessing none.

The only accurate way to measure ride height is from the Nissans specs. Measure from the lower control arm bolt to the ground. Then measure from the bottom of the welded on steering stop to the ground. Take the difference between the two. It should be between 1.791" and 1.949". For a torsion bar tweak, you can go to 2"-2.125", but anything over that is really going to cause problems down the road.

Ian, I'm going to measure other areas based on your post. But again, before I ever touched the driver side bar, I was at 14" stock so it has been only raised one inch which according to what I read is fine.

If I am indeed to high, I'll lower it. I don't care to stress the steering.

Dirtguy and I installed the Calmini Shackles on my X which gave me a 1-1/2" Lift in the Rear, and cranked-up the Torsion Bars which to even things out...we cranked the right side 15-1/2 turns till it got a little hard to turn and the Left side 10 turns till it got hard to turn...we were wondering why the Left side got less turns untill it got hard to turn than the Right side...anybody experienced this situatation...

OK, so I lowered the Tbars more to get more room between the Upper A Arms and the bumpstops. Measure, drove around and braked to get settling. Needed to raise the passenger side a little to even out both sides.

Now everytime I have turned the bolt either way, it has turned pretty easy. But this time to raise the passenger side just 2 turns, it was a bear. No idea why now it was so hard, made me a little nervous. Can you adjust them up or down too much. I read guys here tweaking them quite a bit to get both sides even. Then I searched and found this from RedX......

"I truly cannot imagine lifting a truck by the torsion bar. The rotational force stored in one of those bars is tremendous.

I had the misfortune of having a T-bar aduster bolt give way when adjusting the bar a bit. It sounded like a gunshot when those threads gave way on the bolt, and the resulting force tore a hole in the palm of my hand about an inch wide. As well as blowing the socket off of the breaker bar I was using, firing it into the concrete garage floor about 6 inches from my head, taking a chunk out of the concrete floor, before flying into and denting the metal garage door about fifteen feet away.

There is way too much energy in those bars to subject them to adverse situations.

EDIT: And I will add....this all happened with the X on jackstands, and the upper A-arm at full droop, resting on the upper bumpstop. The force released in this incident was not vehicle-weight related....simply the result of the energy stored in the bar relative to its place in the torsional suspension environment.

[ 10-21-2002, 08:41 PM: Message edited by: RedX ]"

Possible problem I may have or am I being paranoid? Also, threads and bolts were lubed.

Sounds like crud on the threads (which will bind any bolt). Any time I adjust them, I clean the threads and give them a good shot of WD40.

I did shoot them with some Boeshield, I'll try cleaning the threads too.

So Ian, have you ever heard about Tbars blowing out like RedX's.