I installed my Calmini lift this past weekend. Within 50 miles the front dropped almost 3 inches (which I sort of expected) Now it's dropped close to 2 inches (I expected more settling but this seems like alot). I'm just wondering how many adjustments are normal before they finally settle in? I need an allignment but I don't want to get it done until it's done settling.

Also the rear with Calmini shackles and AAL's is higher than I would like. I really don't carry much weight back there so how long does it take for the rear springs to settle, and how much can I expect?

Thanks,
Ron

3" in one day seems like a lot to me. Are you saying it dropped the 3 inches from the time you had the lift installed *and* had the front end lifted where you wanted it?

If so, that doesn't sound right unless you had soft, stock t-bars and just ran it through the Rubicon Trail.

Sounds to me like you need to re-index the tbars and get it back to where you want it.

Mine settled a total of about 2" over a couple of months, but nothing a few turns of the adjuster screws couldn't fix.

In my opinion, once you have the alignment you're good to go (until you really whack it good offroad, that is). If it settles an inch and you raise it back an inch (exactly), almost nothing has really changed. I've got 85k miles and quite a few offroad trips on my lifted X w/ 32's and I've only have one alignment done - and yes, my tires are/have been wearing great.

That sounds like way too much sag to me. I've got SAW t-bars, and they took 6 months to sag about 2 inches, and that seemed like too much.

I just installed my Calmini lift this weekend also and I noticed the same thing. It dropped 3 inches on me the first day, reindexed and cranked em back up, dropped another 3 inches, reindexed and cranked back up. I did give mine a good workout the first day though down in the Wildomar OHV. Drove around for about 3 hours getting full articulation out of the system so I was expecting them to settle some but not that much. I'll see if it happens again. If it does I'm going to give Steve a call tomorrow and see what the deal is. I know I've got a little extra weight up there with their bumper and an XD9000i but I thought that these new T bars were designed for that.

are these common for calmini's lift? how long has it taken for others' calmini lifts to settle and stop fluctuating?

Maybe a dumb question (but no one else here has asked)

But since your front seems to be dropping a lotr, I have to wonder - After you crank the T-bars, did you tighten the locking nut to prevent the adjuster bolt from backing down.

That would appear to the problem, anyways

Yes

Yes the locknut was tightened on both sides on my X too.

Hmm I have the calmini t-bars and bumper and have had no settling yet. I keep hoping it does as I cranked them higher than I wanted in the hopes they would settle.

After installing the lift I adjusted the Calmini T-bars to a 1/4" between the A-arm and bump stop anticipating some settling. The front end then dropped close to 3" within 50 miles. Read stinkbug I re-adjusted the T-bars and drove about 50 more miles and now the front end is about 2 inches too low. I'm going to re-adjust them tonight and see what happens.

This seems a bit severe after reading some of the posts above, I wonder if the T-bars are possibly defective. I'm sure my T-bars are from the same batch as Axle.

Axle please post back here how your T-bars hold up after your next adjustment. Thanks.

Ron

This is crazy, there must be an issue with this batch of bars. How can one set not settle at all and then two others drop 3" and then 2" within two day?

Are you sure the splines in your t-bar anchors arent stripped?

I agree seems weird one set will settle and one set will not. Wonder if a bad batch somehow got thrown in the kits and those who buy them seperate get a different set. Just thinking outloud

so your guys' xterras are literally dropping back to stock height? is this just the front w/ the t-bars or does this happen w/ the aal's?
how long will it do this until it finally sets?

I think you should check your splines, some people have had an issue with various t-bars settling earlier, however you should also check and make sure you installed them correctly. Right and left and front to back. Also you have to verify how far you put it into the anchor the splines should not stick out on the t-bar more than I think 1/4" (someone correct me if I am wrong here) Also make sure you did not cross thread your threads on the adjustment bolt.

Well the calmini's do not have front to back or left to right specific ones. They become left or right when you first put the load on them. Then you do not want to switch them.

Maybe the fact that I have no lift on mine is the reason mine have not settled. While they are cranked a bit higher than stock right now nothing near the extra needed for the complete lift. Hmm very interesting indeed.

Wasnt off2cjb also one without a lift that had settling issues?

The splines are showing no more than 1/4" in both end for each side. The adjustment bolt was not cross threaded either, I was able to thread the nut on with my fingers until snug. As noted above there are no left/right specific with Calmini T-bars until a load is placed on the bars. The problem (if there really is a problem) seems to be with the bars themselves. I will adjust the height again tonight and see if they settle noticeably again. If they do I'm calling Calmini.

Ron

Well the last adjustment I cranked them all the way to the bumpstops expecting a little more settling. I've done some driving around a bit today and they seem to have settled a little bit. There is about 1/2" now between the bumstops and the control arm. If it stays like this I'll be happy. I'll post again later on whether or not they stay or sag some more.

I don't have a lift per say, but I have Calmini's UCA's installed upfront and I also have their torsion bars.

I just cranked them up again to with 1/2" between bump stop and UCA's and within 1 week it dropped almost 1" again.

Yes, the locking nut is tight. Yes there is no more than 1/4" of splines showing. Someone mentioned that they should be installed right to left, front to back...I thought that didn't matter until after they were installed. Maybe these bars are shorter than the previous versions.

hold up, so whats the point of getting a 3" lift if its gunna drop 3". Has anyone else had this prob b/c i was gonna order the calmini kit but if it does this then i dunno if im still interested. How much is it even supposed to settle in at.

You'll still get your 3" of lift, you just may have to crank your torsion bars back up a few times untill they settle in. Mine seem to have stopped but I'm going to wait another day or two before making a final judgement.

I have had no problems (SAW bars though) with Calmini's lift. It's been on well over a year now.

so after u cranked up the torsion bars a few times it settled in and u got the 3" of lft or will it settle in a little bit lower than 3"

Thanks Matt

You will get three inches just seems some of the t-bars need more time to settle.

oh ok thanks man

about this setting of the t-bars...
do they drop in height by just sitting there in your driveway, or does it take some bumpy wheeling to drop them?
and this should be expected for the first few months or so?

I think more a mixture of both, making the front flex a bit will help them to settle a bit faster.

Mine have been settling by simply driving on pavement. I adjusted them 2 nights ago for the 3rd time. Once again I adjusted them so the bump stop was 1/2" from the UCA, but this time I drove it a couple miles after each adjustment. Every time I pulled back in the garage it had settled more. Finally they stopped dropping and I assumed/hoped the settling was done. I was wrong, the passenger side is about 1" from the UCA today and the driver side barely dropped. I'm going to readjust again tonight and hope that they are finally done.

Are you guys preloading the bars during installation ?

When you install them, don't do it with the control arms hanging, they need to be fully compressed.

No, I guess I didn't do that. Mine seem to have settled now anyways after being crenked back up 3 times. I guess if I had done it right the first time that wouldn't have happened.

Mine were done with the control harms hanging too When I put tension on the bars with full vehicle weight I was afraid the tension bolt would fail (strip/break). The pressure required to lift the truck seemed too high. I guess that may have been the problem, thanks Ian.

If you can't turn the adjuster bolt by hand with an 18" wrench, it may be time to replace them (about $5 each). They should be rather easy to turn.

You're not going to have the full weight of the vehicle on it when installing, simply place the front of the Xterra on jack stands, then jack each arm up as you install the torsion bar.

I didn't use my breaker bar, I used a regular length 3/8 ratchet. It makes sense to do the adjustment with jack stands supporting the truck and a jack applying pressure to the A-Arm. Thanks for the info.

Ron

Yes Ian, my truck was fully on the ground.

Mine was fully on the ground as well which might explain why mine have not settled as much as you guys. But doesn't explain off2cjb's experience though

From what I've seen all torsion bars will settle over time. I've had SLR bars for just over a year and I still have to crank them up every couple of months. I don't see how installing them with the truck jacked up or on the ground will affect this. I've cranked them both ways and it hasn't mattered. I normally set the ride height then back out of the driveway and run over the curb several times and recheck the UCA gap.

Stupid newbie question...

How do you adjust the torsion bars? I am considering the lift, but I have basically no tools here other than a set of wrenches and screwdrivers--certainly no major automative tools. Do I jack it up and turn some bolts? From reading the thread, I should expect to have to readjust the T bars every few months, sound right? Or is that only if I don't "pre-load" them?

Argh.

This is on a Frontier, but it should be the same for your truck: http://www.nissanoffroad.net/frontier/how_to/torsion_bars/default.asp

I talked to Steve from Calmini last night and he gave me some good information. He said since my alignment is completely off there is a good chance that my font end is actually toed out rather than in a couple degrees like it should be. If the front end is toed out the tires pull the front end down while driving forward. He said if I reverse a few feet before checking the bump stop/UCA measurement I may notice that the front end is higher. I took Steve's advice and sure enough the front end measured higher. I scheduled an alignment for Monday.

He also recommended that I find a place that would really compress the suspension and drive it a few times. There is a road near my house that has a nice dip that isn't harsh, but really compresses the suspension. I hit this about 10 times, and when I checked the front end afterwards it had settled noticeably again. I readjusted the T-bars to Steve's recommended 3/8 -7/16" from the bump stop. Hopefully these bars are close to settling in. I would like to thank Steve for his great customer service.

Ron

Let me add some fuel to the fire. For you guys running 3/8 to 7/16 gap, do you get a vibration while on the gas? I set mine up that way and in 2wd no problem, when I shifted into 4hi the faster I tried to go the worse the vibration got. I had to lower the front to 5/8 gap and still get a little vibration. It never did this before the lift and at my current setting it is ass high and driving me crazy. Any help on this would be great.

As you raise the front of the truck, the angle of the axle shafts will increase. The ends of the axle shafts have CV joints. On the wheel side, it's an Rzeppa Joint, which is essentially 6 large balls in a cage. On the diff side is a tripod joint, which is a telescoping design of 3 bearings that allow the axle shaft to move in and out as it travels through an arc.

As the angle increases, the Rzeppa Joint can cause vibration due to how the balls travel inside the joint.

If you look at a stock height Xterra, you will notice the axle shafts are almost parallel to the ground, which is how they are designed to work. They spend very little time at extreme angles, so vibration is rarely felt.

They only solution to decreasing some of the vibration is to lower the front diff, which will decrease the angles, but not enough to get the axle shafts back to their stock angle.

When in 4WD, the road surface is usually something other than pavement, and speeds are usually low, so I find it not to be much of an issue.

This past winter I noticed a vibration when I accelerated. The more gas I gave it the worse the vibration. It wasn't there at all when I was cruising at a steady speed. It turned out the tripod joints had worn a notch in the tracks they move in.