twilson16

I am in the process of swapping out my transfer case when i was stumped! I Unloaded to torsion bars complety unbolted the cross member and when i went to slide it forward to actually remove it it wouldnt budge. So i sparayed it with Pj. let soak 30 min nothing. Took a hammer to hit not an inch. tried from the front with a bar and hammer to hit it back NOTHING!!! Let set another 30 in spray stuff and tried it again for another hour and Nothing again. Nothing but a sore arm from swinging a hammer. What else can i do. My nest though was heat but was not sure. Let me know!!!

green machine

im curious to fin out this answer. i never did get mine to budge when i installed my lift.

twilson16

My only deal is that I have no choice. I need to drop that X member in order to drop transfer case. I will be putting some heat to it tommorow. I went back this evening after letting it soak all day and night and the things wont budge. Its kinda stupid really .. we will see!!!

rsb5772

Mine wouldn't budge when I changed out my keys either. I just unbolted the cross member and slid it back, letting the keys slide off the ends of the bars. Can you get the T-case out by doing that?

You might try an air chisel if the heat doesn't work, but I would think that it would.

mh07431

I also did the same with the cross member, torsion bars were stuck for good. My friend and I both hammered on them for at least 2 hours. Two days of soaking in penentrating oil and nothing. Good luck! PS we discussed the air chisel idea.

MdMudrunner

I just installed new keys on my truck and had the same prob. I had to use a big pry bar, 2 sledge hammers and a whole can of pb. As i pryed and hit on the back of the tortion bar my friend banged on the the front of the bar and it helped to break it loose. I think all the mud under the truck might have had alittle something to do with them being so stuck

twilson16

OK well transfer case is out and I have another problem. Unfortunatly the torsion bars are still there what i had to do it take out the passenger seat and cut out a spot in the floor just big enough to allow the tail to have a little extra room to be able to slide over the X member. I know its ghetto BUT. almost 5 days of soak and bang and torch didnt work and have air hammer. Even paid a guy to try and remove them he told me to just get a new x memeber, torsion bar, and lower control arm. I decided to go another route. Now what pisses me off is that the t case appears to be good i slide the electric motor off and somehow it was positioned between 2H and 4 H just enough so it was out of gear. Man was i pissed. I dont think it is the motor becasue i cant get any juice at the motor. With the truck on i swith it into 4h and nothing. What my problem?

EEExotic

I used a air hammer and both were out in under 10 mins. after pounding with a sledge and hoping I didn't hit anything else. its next to impossible to get a good swing with something that heavy. But with a air hammer I was able to hit the center with more force and continous force. it worked great.. best of luck with your project

Albertabuck

New guy on the block here but since I use these kind of sites for info and ideas myself, I thought I'd put out there my solution to removing the transfer case issue with siezed torsion bars and keys. After realizing this wasn't coming apart as my manuals said it should, I did a check online and read a few different ideas, the one above of where the guy cut out the floor boards made me cringe...lol...only time I ever did that was a small hole behind the seat on my '85 GM 3500 1 ton to get to the bolts for the tank changeover valve!

Up here in Alberta we see lots of salt and such all winter, so after reading how all you guys in the south are having trouble too made me come up with a "plan B" real fast.

I'm working on a '98 150 4X4 regular cab which needed that absolutely ridiculously located clutch slave cylinder changed, so transfer case removal was needed. Since the after several hours of heat and beat on the various areas of the torsion bars I gave up there and did something really simple and easy.

I removed the four cab mount bolts, released the fuel lines and such where they are clamped to the transmission and the shifter levers and with a jack under each side at the rear cab reinforcement member, slowly jacked up the cab. I was able to lift it almost four inches at the rear when I had to stop only because the two ground straps under the cab had become tight. Had I removed these it could have went up much more, but that 3 plus inches of extra clearance gave me all I needed for the transfer case to easily slide over top of the torsion bar crossmember. With some help I'm sure there would have been enough room to have left the trany and transfer case bolted together but since its a dry split, for the sake of six bolts it made life a lot easier. Once I had rasied the cab, I placed 2 short 2X4s and a small square of 1/2 plywood in the center of the cab on top of the cab mount member and took out the jacks. When I was done, just lowered it back down and put all the bolts back, all lubed up so they're ready if I ever need to do this again! There is more than enough give in the rad support mounts, and nothing got pinched between the motor and cab. If one was to lift the cab higher, then I would think you'd start having some issues fairly quick. This would work on any type of cab, just as long as you take out all of the actual cab mount bolts, the cab and front clip will tip up as one piece with no distortion of the body at all.

By lifting the body as I did, also made for a lot of extra room for disconnecting and reconnecting all of the various components as well as lots of clearance for the shift tower. To remove the cab mount bolts and raise the cab took less than one hour, and about the same to reinstall. Personally I think that this would be faster in the long run than unloading and removing the torsion bar parts and member, and after reinstalling it all, readjusting ride height.

badtoys

save your self alot of headache your probably now going to get it lose from lower control arm so i took a cut off wheel and split mine in the middle knocked the bottom off then the top to 5 min tops you will need a new control arm but that probably why you are doing this in the first place